WHAT HAPPENED TO DAWES?

Our unconventional Mr. Dawes has again performed the extraordinary. His dramatic failure to bring the good news from Ghent to Aix in the recent Senatorial fight over Warren's cabinet appointment will surely become history. There is a universal appeal in the thought of the picturesque President of the Senate abruptly terminating his slumbers; hastily adorning himself amid gentle remarks to an elusive garter or collar-button; writhing in a taxi with crimson face and twitching fingers: and addressing soothing epithets to a conscientious traffic-cop; bounding, three at a time, up the Capitol steps, slithering through its polished corridors, and catapulting himself at last into the turbulent Senate-chamber,--only to find the battle lost, the cause defeated, the administration unspeakably humiliated.

There are things one would like to know about that ride. In the first place wouldn't it have been better to take an ambulance, a fire engine, or even a patrol wagon? Of course it is rather hard to keep up an appearance of dignity while swinging on the back end of a hook and ladder, but who could have guessed the identity of such a daring passenger, unless the Dawes pipe had been noticed? Or take the police patrol; here surely is safe and rapid transit, as long as Mr. Dawes took care not to look out of the windows, for even Washington would have been startled to see the Vice-President peering anxiously through the bars of a Black Maria.

One can easily guess at Mr. Dawes' long rage in the cab, but the sequel is if possible--more startling. Imagine, then, the taxi pulling up at the Capitol steps with a final burst of speed. Mr. Dawes jumps out and rushes up that long marble flight of steps in a frantic attempt to save the honor of his country. A voice halls him from below: "Hey, come back here, you owe me sixty-five cents!" Sheridan had his foam-flecked charger. Paul Revere his prancing make but for over and ever Dawes will be known by his Yellow Cab.