“Order, gentlemen—!  The House will come to order!  If spectators offend again, the Sergeant-at-arms will clear the galleries!”

Then he cast his eyes aloft and gazed at some object attentively for a moment.  All eyes followed the direction of the Speaker’s, and then there was a general titter.  The Speaker said: 

“Let the Sergeant-at Arms inform the gentleman that his conduct is an infringement of the dignity of the House—­and one which is not warranted by the state of the weather.”  Poor Sellers was the culprit.  He sat in the front seat of the gallery, with his arms and his tired body overflowing the balustrade—­sound asleep, dead to all excitements, all disturbances.  The fluctuations of the Washington weather had influenced his dreams, perhaps, for during the recent tempest of applause he had hoisted his gingham umbrella, and calmly gone on with his slumbers.  Washington Hawkins had seen the act, but was not near enough at hand to save his friend, and no one who was near enough desired to spoil the effect.  But a neighbor stirred up the Colonel, now that the House had its eye upon him, and the great speculator furled his tent like the Arab.  He said: 

“Bless my soul, I’m so absent-minded when I, get to thinking!  I never wear an umbrella in the house—­did anybody ‘notice it’?  What-asleep?  Indeed?  And did you wake me sir?  Thank you—­thank you very much indeed.  It might have fallen out of my hands and been injured.  Admirable article, sir—­present from a friend in Hong Kong; one doesn’t come across silk like that in this country—­it’s the real—­Young Hyson, I’m told.”

By this time the incident was forgotten, for the House was at war again.  Victory was almost in sight, now, and the friends of the bill threw themselves into their work with enthusiasm.  They soon moved and carried its second reading, and after a strong, sharp fight, carried a motion to go into Committee of the whole.  The Speaker left his place, of course, and a chairman was appointed.

Now the contest raged hotter than ever—­for the authority that compels order when the House sits as a House, is greatly diminished when it sits as Committee.  The main fight came upon the filling of the blanks with the sum to be appropriated for the purchase of the land, of course.

Buckstone—­“Mr. Chairman, I move you, sir, that the words ’three millions of’ be inserted.”

Mr. Hadley—­“Mr. Chairman, I move that the words two and a half dollars be inserted.”

Mr. Clawson—­“Mr. Chairman, I move the insertion of the words five and twenty cents, as representing the true value of this barren and isolated tract of desolation.”

The question, according to rule, was taken upon the smallest sum first.  It was lost.

Then upon the nest smallest sum.  Lost, also.

And then upon the three millions.  After a vigorous battle that lasted a considerable time, this motion was carried.