a party of rich-looking gentlemen would come down to Springfield and stand about in the house, or sit on the big red lounge behind the speaker's chair, and whisper and try to get men to vote for it.
And Jamie knew, too, that it was called senate bill No. 578; he impressed that number firmly on his mind and could never forget it. He soon observed that on any day when he saw S. B. 578 on the calendar—which is a kind of program printed every morning to tell what bills are coming up—Mr. Meredith would be on his feet and make motions and speeches, and that the gentlemen on the speaker's red lounge would scowl at him and the other city members try to answer him. And Jamie noticed that Mr. Meredith always succeeded in having the bill referred back to some committee, or did something to keep it from becoming a law.
Jamie read the newspapers now and then. He always turned first to the base-ball news—the season was just opening—and then to the legislative news, although he never read that as carefully as he did the base-ball news. Often he saw Mr. Meredith's name in the types—the papers said he was making a gallant fight against the franchise grab. Jamie
