The doorkeepers are curled up asleep on the cushions in the corners of the galleries. Many of the Republicans have left their seats, and are to be found chatting and smoking in the adjoining cloak-rooms. The fragrance of dying Havanas ascend to the galleries, reminding one of the days of the Randolphs and Jays, when men sat in their seats in the Senate with their hats on, and smoking their clay pipes in full view. The habit is not cured, but it is concealed, and this must be one of the facts which marks the progress of civilization. A tall man arises to address the Senate. It is Kernan, the new Senator from New York. He has reached the mid-autumn of human life. It is his first speech, and a bouquet of Senators cluster around him. The back of his head has a heavy covering of dark iron-gray hair, but his fine, scholarly face is rimmed with a fringe of pure white, which at once stamps his individuality on the memory. His Creator never designed him for an orator, but he gives us good, sound sense, dressed neatly in pure English. He does not speak to convince his opponents. He seems to realize that what he says will be heard by the millions of people in the State of New York. His colleague, Conkling, sniffs him from afar, as one mastiff does another, if it be a stranger of the same tribe. Roscoe has been reading a pamphlet with a yellow cover, which he holds daintily between his finger and thumb. If it were any other but our Roscoe, the “yellow cover” would be a serious suspicion of “Braddon” or “Ouida,” but the fact is self-evident that the book was obtained because the binding is a complete match for his hair. Senator Conkling is the Apollo of the Senate. His beauty is the aqua-marine type. It resembles a very fine diamond considerably off color, unless one is fond of flame; then the delusion is perfect. If Senator Conkling was a planet, he would be called Mars, not because of his rapid revolution around the great central power, but owing to that precious high-colored ingredient which was used so lavishly in his physical construction, and which serves to keep his pride burning like the lamp of the vestal virgins, that neither time nor circumstances can put out.
Come back to the Senators that cluster around the Speaker! All new men except Allison, of Iowa, one of the most polite and genial men to be found. Out of courtesy, alone, if nothing else, he listens to the maiden speech of his peer irrespective of the fact of his politics. The first man that heads the list is Wallace, of Pennsylvania, whom the gods have blessed with a fine face but a finer form, and yet it is evident that the Creator took no special pains with his construction; for he has thickly sprinkled just such men in every town of the State, cities of course excepted. Senator Wallace has reached the Senate chamber in the noon of life. The sun is stationary over his head. His face is not the kind that tells its own story. The tempest of passion has swept over it, but left no signs of the tornado in its track. If he has had deep thoughts they have ploughed no furrows. In his battle with time so far he has won. As he has never tried his wings, it is too soon to pronounce him a senatorial eagle, but as he hails from Pennsylvania he may turn out an honest bird of prey.