After the appointment of committees, the genial bishop began his opening address, and a very careful, pretty address it was, too—­well worded, well balanced, dealing in broad generalities and studiously saying nothing that would indicate that he had any intention of directing the policy of the meetings.  Of course it brought forth all the applause that a bishop’s address deserves, and the ladies in the back seats fluttered their fans, and said:  “The dear man, how eloquent he is.”

Gray had succeeded in getting Elkins placed on the committee on resolutions, but when they came to report, the fiery resolution denouncing the administration for its policy toward the negro was laid on the table.  The young man had succeeded in engineering it through the committee, but the chairman decided that its proper place was under the head of new business, where it might be taken up in the discussion of the administration’s attitude toward the negro.

    [Illustration:  The bishop’s address.]

“We are here, gentlemen,” pursued the bland presiding officer, “to make public sentiment, but we must not try to make it too fast; so if our young friend from Ohio will only hold his resolution a little longer, it will be acted upon at the proper time.  We must be moderate and conservative.”

Gray sprang to his feet and got the chairman’s eye.  His face was flushed and he almost shouted:  “Conservatism be hanged!  We have rolled that word under our tongues when we were being trampled upon; we have preached it in our churches when we were being shot down; we have taught it in our schools when the right to use our learning was denied us, until the very word has come to be a reproach upon a black man’s tongue!”

There were cries of “Order!  Order!” and “Sit down!” and the gavel was rattling on the chairman’s desk.  Then some one rose to a point of order, so dear to the heart of the negro debater.  The point was sustained and the Ohioan yielded the floor, but not until he had gazed straight into the eyes of Miss Kirkman as they rose from her notebook.  She turned red.  He curled his lip and sat down, but the blood burned in his face, and it was not the heat of shame, but of anger and contempt that flushed his cheeks.

This outbreak was but the precursor of other storms to follow.  Every one had come with an idea to exploit or some proposition to advance.  Each one had his panacea for all the aches and pains of his race.  Each man who had paid his five dollars wanted his full five dollars’ worth of talk.  The chairman allowed them five minutes apiece, and they thought time dear at a dollar a minute.  But there were speeches to be made for buncombe, and they made the best of the seconds.  They howled, they raged, they stormed.  They waxed eloquent or pathetic.  Jones of Georgia was swearing softly and feelingly into Shackelford’s ear.  Shackelford was sympathetic and nervous as he fingered a large bundle of manuscript in his back pocket.  He got up several times and called “Mr. Chairman,” but his voice had been drowned in the tumult.  Amid it all, calm and impassive, sat the man, who of all others was expected to be in the heat of the fray.