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“I’ve got it,” he broke out at last. “Dicker, I want you to bring in a bill to make Fastburg the only capital.”

“What is the use?” asked the legislator, looking more disconsolate, more hopeless than ever. “Slowburg will oppose it and beat it.”

“Never you mind,” persisted Mr. Pullwool. “You bring in your little bill and stand up for it like a man. There’s money in it. You don’t see it? Well, I do; I’m used to seeing money in things; and in this case I see it plain. As sure as whiskey is whiskey, there’s money in it.”

Mr. Pullwool’s usually dull and, so to speak, extinct countenance was fairly alight and aflame with exultation. It was almost a wonder that his tallowy person did not gutter beneath the blaze, like an over-fat candle under the flaring of a wick too large for it.

“Well, I’ll bring in the bill,” agreed Mr. Dicker, catching the enthusiasm of his counsellor and shaking off his lethargy. He perceived a dim promise of fees, and at the sight his load of despondency dropped away from him, as Christian’s burden loosened in presence of the cross. He looked a little like the confident, resolute Tom Dicker, who twenty years before had graduated from college the brightest, bravest, most eloquent fellow in his class, and the one who seemed to have before him the finest future.

“Snacks!” said Mr. Pullwool.

At this brazen word Mr. Dicker’s countenance fell again; he was ashamed to talk so frankly about plundering his fellow-citizens; “a little grain of conscience turned him sour.”

“I will take pay for whatever I can do as a lawyer,” he stammered.

“Get out!” laughed the Satanic one. “You just take all there is a-going! You need it bad enough. I know when a man’s hard up. I know the signs. I’ve been as bad off as you; had to look all ways for five dollars; had to play second fiddle and say thanky. But what I offer you ain’t a second fiddle. It’s as good a chance as my own. Even divides. One half to you and one half to me. You know the people and I know the ropes. It’s a fair bargain. What do you say?”

Mr. Dicker thought of his decayed practice and his unpaid bills; and flipping overboard his little grain of conscience, he said, “Snacks.”

“All right,” grinned Pullwool, his teeth gleaming alarmingly. “Word of a gentleman,” he added, extending his pulpy hand, loaded with ostentatious rings, and grasping Dicker’s recoiling fingers. “Harness up your little bill as quick as you can, and drive it like Jehu. Fastburg to be the only capital. Slowburg no claims at all, historical, geographical, or economic. The old arrangement a humbug; as inconvenient as a fifth wheel of a coach; costs the State thousands of greenbacks every year. Figure it all up statistically and dab it over with your shiniest rhetoric and make a big thing of it every way. That’s what you’ve got to do; that’s your little biz. I’ll tend to the rest.”

“I don’t quite see where the money is to come from,” observed Mr. Dicker.

“Leave that to me,” said the veteran of the lobbies; “my name is Pullwool, and I know how to pull the wool over men’s eyes, and then I know how to get at their britches-pockets. You bring in your bill and make your speech. Will you do it?”

“Yes,” answered Dicker, bolting all scruples in another half tumbler of brandy.

He kept his word. As promptly as parliamentary forms and mysteries would allow, there was a bill under the astonished noses of honorable lawgivers, removing the seat of legislation from Slowburg and centring it in Fastburg. This bill Mr. Thomas Dicker supported with that fluency and fiery enthusiasm of oratory which had for a time enabled him to show as the foremost man of his State. Great was the excitement, great the rejoicing and anger. The press of Fastburg sent forth shrieks of exultation, and the press of Slowburg responded with growlings of disgust. The two capitals and the two geographical sections which they represented were ready to fire Parrott guns at each other, without regard to life and property in the adjoining regions of the earth. If there was a citizen of the little Commonwealth who did not hear of this bill and did not talk of it, it was because that citizen was as deaf as a post and as dumb as an oyster. Ordinary political distinctions were forgotten, and the old party-whips could not manage their very wheel-horses, who went snorting and kicking over the traces in all directions. In short, both in the legislature and out of it, nothing was thought of but the question of the removal of the capital.