weight to the declaration that it was the greatest talking they had ever heard; were young children, who in after years, when a neglected gravestone was toppling over all that was left of the orator, would still speak of the wonders of his eloquence; were comely women to whom the household was the world and the household task the life’s work, but who could now for the moment lift their bent forms and have their dulled eyes turned to higher and better things.  Moreover, there were in that room a score of deep eyes that could not but quicken at the sight of a slender, manly figure, clad in scholastic black, of a thin, earnest face, with beetled brows and a classic forehead from which swept waves of black hair.  Little wonder Perry was restless under restraint!  Little wonder he grew more melancholy and coughed louder and louder, as the light without faded away, and the faces within were dimmed in the shadow!

From the kitchen came the clatter of dishes and pans and a babel of women’s voices, the shrill commands of old Mrs. Bolum rising above them.  The feast was preparing.  Its hour was at hand.  Apollo never was a match for Bacchus, and Perry Thomas could not command attention once Mrs. Bolum appeared on the scene.  He realized this.  Her cries came as an inspiration to action.  In the twilight I lost him, but the lamp-light disclosed him standing over Henry Holmes, who had been driven into a corner and was held prisoner there by a threatening finger.  There was a whispered parley that ended only when the old man surrendered and, stepping to the centre of the room, rapped long and loud on the floor with his cane.

Henry is always blunt.  He has a way of getting right at the heart of things with everyone except Bolum.  For Isaac, he regards circumlocution as necessary, taking the ground that with him the quantity and not the quality of the words counts.  So when he had silenced the company, and with a sweep of his cane had driven them into close order about the walls, he said:  “Mr. Thomas is anxious to make an address.”

At this moment Mr. Thomas was about to step into the zone of fire of a hundred eyes.  There was a very audible titter in the corner where three thoughtless young girls had squeezed themselves into one rocking-chair.  The orator heard it and brought his heels together with a click.

“Mind what I told you, Henery,” he whispered very loud, glaring at Mr. Holmes.

“Oh, yes,” Henry returned in a casual tone.

He thumped the floor again, and when the tittering had subsided, and only the snuffling of Cevery Pulsifer broke the silence, he said:  “In jestice to Mr. Thomas, I am requested to explain that the address was originally intended to be got off at the railroad.  It was forgot by accident, and him not havin’ time to change it, he asks us to make believe we are standin’ alongside of the track at Pleasantville just as the train comes in.”

Isaac Bolum had fixed himself comfortably on two legs of his chair, with the projecting soles of his boots caught behind the rung.  Feet and chair-legs came to the floor with a crash, and half rising from the seat, one hand extended in appeal, the other at his right ear, forming a trumpet, he shouted:  “Mr. Chairman!  Mr. Chairman!”