Mr. Randolph, they cannot take much more of anything in here, and if I begin to throw stocks over, it will bring the gavel inside of ten minutes; and that will be to announce a dozen failures.

I answer, that of course he becomes subject to and must of necessity respect those rules of order and decorum which are obligatory on all good men and Masons; but that he cannot, by the exercise of an act of courtesy in declining to preside, divest himself of his prerogative, which, moreover, he may at any time during the evening assume, and demand the gavel.

Rap, rap, rap! went the gavel at last.

What will it be?' "He raised the gavel, the son of a bitch.

The colonel smacked his gavel and read the sentence for the record.

"Mr. Brownley will please speak from this platform, and remember, in thirty minutes to the second, I will sound the gavel for the resumption of business.

" The excitement, which had been seething, broke out as she ceased; but the judge did not need to use his gavel, or the officers of the court exert their authority.

What would have been the consequences to America and humanity had the Rebellion, even then being vaguely devised by Southern Hotspurs, burst upon the nation in the winter of 1856, with the nation's sword of commander-in-chief in the hand of the impulsive Frémont, and Lincoln, inheriting the patient wariness and cool blood of three generations of pioneers and Indian-fighters, wielding only the powerless gavel of Vice-President?