Lewis Rand, sweeping his letters and papers together, had nodded to Adam and moved from his table to that of a pillar of the Republican party, with whom he was now in attentive discourse.  Apparently he gave no heed to the voices around him, though he might have heard his own name, seeing that wherever the talk now turned it came at last upon his speech of that morning.  Presently, “Mr. Rand!” called some one from across the room.

Rand turned.  “Mr. Harrison?”

“Mr. Rand, there’s a dispute here.  Just what did you mean by—­” and there followed a quotation from the morning’s speech.

Rand moistened his lips with wine, turned more fully in his chair, and answered in a sentence of such pith as to bring applause from those of his party who heard.  In a moment there was another query, then a third; he was presently committed to a short and vigorous exposition and defence of the point in question.  The entire room became attentive.  Then, as he paused, the strident voice of a noted and irascible man proclaimed, “That’s not democracy and not Jefferson—­that doctrine, Mr. Rand.  Veil her as you please in gauze and tinsel, you’ve got conquest by the hand.  You may not think it, but you’re preaching—­what’s the word that ‘Aurelius’ used?—­’Buonapartism.’”

A Federalist of light weight who had arrived at quarrelsomeness and an empty bottle put in a sudden oar. “‘Buonapartism’ equals Ambition, and both begin with an R.”  He looked pointedly at Rand.

“My name begins with an R, sir,” said Rand.

“Pshaw! so does mine!” exclaimed the man at the table with him.  “Let him alone, Rand.  He doesn’t know what he is saying.”

Rand turned to the first speaker. “’Buonapartism,’—­that’s a word that’s as ample as Charity, but I hardly think, sir, that it covers this case.  It’s a very vague word.  But writers to the Gazette are apt to be more fluent than accurate.”

“I shouldn’t call it vague,” cried his opponent.  “It’s a damned good word, and so I’d tell ‘Aurelius,’ if I knew who he was.”

“It wasn’t random firing in that letter,” said a voice from another quarter of the room.  “I don’t much care to know the gunner, but I’d mightily like to know who was aimed at.  It was a damned definite thing, that letter.  ’Buonapartism—­the will to mount—­sacrifice of obligations—­Genius prostituted to Ambition—­sin against light—­a man’s betrayal of his highest self and his own belief—­the mind’s incurable blindness—­I, I am above all law—­to take rich gifts and hold the gods in contempt—­Daedalus wings’”—­The speaker paused to fill his glass.  “Yes, I should powerfully like to know at whom ‘Aurelius’ was aiming.”

“At no one, I think,” said Rand coolly.  “He made a scarecrow of his own, and then was frightened by it.  His chain-shot raked a man of straw,—­and so would I tell ‘Aurelius,’ if I knew who he was.”