The pages wear no uniform, or regulation clothes, or badges of any sort. They are required to present themselves for work at nine o'clock in the morning, although Congress does not meet till twelve, and they are not dismissed until adjournment for the day takes place. They put the desks of the Members in order, file for each the bills and papers which are strewn about in confusion, then go to the Document-rooms and work there, helping to put affairs in shape; and they present themselves at twelve in the great chambers of legislation to answer the clapping of the Members' and Senators' hands, and attend to their countless wants. Now they are sent hunting for some book that is needed, for some man, now for a glass of water, now they take messages from one Member to another at a distance, from one House to the other, and sometimes to ladies in the gallery; they fetch a cup of tea into the Cloak-room; fetch the hat and stick out of it; they distribute mail by the armful; they struggle into sight, behind piles of palm-leaf fans big as they are themselves, which are soon cooling the hot air, if it be a late session; and during the nights preceding the close of the session they do not know what sleep is, but are worn out with running and waiting. Thus it will be seen that they are on their feet with but very little intermission, running and tumbling over each other in their eagerness to please; but they seem happy and good-natured through it all, and when they do sit down it is on the steps of the presiding officer's desk, where they are usually tickling or punching or teasing each other as if they had nothing else to do, and were passing away the time.
Sometimes during a recess of Congress you may come upon them in a lower room, assembled in a body, a mimic Senate, one of them in the chair, and another making a speech, and Mr. Blaine and Mr. Conkling and Mr. Bayard and the rest are being imitated to the life. It is in some contrast to these gay rogues that one sees a crippled and dwarfed little hunchback outside the Hall of Representatives, opening and shutting a door for the passer in hopes of the coppers or the nickel that may be tossed him, although he does not beg. At night a little goat carriage comes for him, and he drives off.