Smaller groups were struggling and shouting in every part of the room,
the distracted sergeants-at-arms roaring and wrestling with the
rest. On the high dais the Speaker, white but imperturbable, having
broken his gavel, beat steadily with the handle of an umbrella upon
the square of marble on his desk. Fifteen or twenty members, raging
dementedly, were beneath him, about the clerk's desk and on the steps
leading up to his chair, each howling hoarsely:
"A point of _order_! A point of _or-der_!"
When the semblance of order came at last, the roll was finished,
"reconsidered," the "Breaker" was beaten, 50 to 49, was dead; and
Uncle Billy Rollinson was creeping down the outer steps of the
Statehouse in the cold February slush and rain.
He was glad to be out of the nightmare, though it seemed still upon
him, the horrible clamours, all gonging and blaring at _him_; the
red, maddened faces, the clenched fists, the open mouths, all raging
at _him_--all the ruck and uproar swam about the dazed old man as
he made his slow, unseeing way through the wet streets.
He was too late for dinner at his dingy boarding house, having
wandered far, and he found himself in his room without knowing very
well how he had come there, indeed, scarcely more than half-conscious
that he _was_ there.
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