They could do him no harm; he did not take his seat by their permission.

Upon deliberate plan, therefore, Senator Hanway had not been in his place a fortnight before he got the floor on an appropriation, and began to voice his views.

The walruses at first goggle-eyed him in wrathful amazement; but he kept on.

Then, as was their habit, they set sail for the cloakrooms, waving condemnatory flippers.
[Illustration: One of the Most Reverend of the Senate Walruses] Senator Hanway had thought of this, and the cloakroom move did not disconcert him.

He seized on one of the most reverend of the Senate walruses, one festooned with the very seaweed of Senate tradition, and, casting him, as it were, on the coals of his hot rhetoric, proceeded to roast him exhaustively.