The risible gentleman laughed at the proposed legislation, about which he made the song, and he likened it to a stream that rises hopefully in the mountains, and takes its way singing at the prospect of reaching the ocean, but presently flows into a hole in the ground to fill the forgotten caverns of the earth, and is lost to the knowledge and sight of man.  The caverns he labelled respectively Appropriations, Railroad, Judiciary, and their guardians were unmistakably the Honourables Messrs. Bascom, Botcher, and Ridout.  The greatest cavern of all he called “The Senate.”

If you listen, you can hear the music of the stream of bills as it is rising hopefully and flowing now:  “Mr. Crewe of Leith gives notice that on to-morrow or some subsequent day he will introduce a bill entitled, ‘An act for the Improvement of the State Highways.’  Mr. Crewe of Leith gives notice, etc.  ’An act for the Improvement of the Practice of Agriculture.’  ‘An act relating to the State Indebtedness.’  ’An act to increase the State Forest Area.’  ’An act to incorporate the State Economic League.’  ’An act to incorporate the State Children’s Charities Association.’  ‘An act in relation to Abandoned Farms.’” These were some of the most important, and they were duly introduced on the morrow, and gravely referred by the Speaker to various committees.  As might be expected, a man whose watchword is, “thorough” immediately got a list of those committees, and lost no time in hunting up the chairmen and the various available members thereof.

As a man of spirit, also, Mr. Crewe wrote to Mr. Flint, protesting as to the manner in which he had been treated concerning committees.  In the course of a week he received a kind but necessarily brief letter from the Northeastern’s president to remind him that he persisted in a fallacy; as a neighbour, Mr. Flint would help him to the extent of his power, but the Northeastern Railroads could not interfere in legislative or political matters.  Mr. Crewe was naturally pained by the lack of confidence of his friend; it seems useless to reiterate that he was far from being a fool, and no man could be in the capital a day during the session without being told of the existence of Number Seven, no matter how little the informant might know of what might be going on there.  Mr. Crewe had been fortunate enough to see the inside of that mysterious room, and, being a sufficiently clever man to realize the importance and necessity of government by corporations, had been shocked at nothing he had seen or heard.  However, had he had a glimpse of the Speaker’s lists under the hopelessly crushed hat of Mr. Bascom, perhaps he might have been shocked, after all.