A great essayist has defined laughter as a "feeling of superiority in the laugher over the object laughed at." If this is correct, it makes all humor despicable.
Certainly much coarseness, meanness and cruelty are every day tolerated, because of the comic covering with which it is draped.
It is not to be supposed that this comedy nor its winter prologue had diverted Peter from other things.

In spite of Miss De Voe's demands on his time he had enough left to spend many days in Albany when the legislature took up the reports of the Commissions.

He found strong lobbies against both bills, and had a long struggle with them.

He had the help of the newspapers, and he had the help of Costell, yet even with this powerful backing, the bills were first badly mangled, and finally were side-tracked.

In the actual fight, Pell helped him most, and Peter began to think that a man might buy an election and yet not be entirely bad.