After General Doby has succeeded in abating the noise in honour-of the Honourable Adam, there is a hush of expectancy.  Humphrey Crewe, who has made all this trouble and enthusiasm, is to be nominated next, and the Honourable Timothy Wailing of Newcastle arises to make that celebrated oration which the cynical have called the “thousand-dollar speech.”  And even if they had named it well (which is not for a moment to be admitted!), it is cheap for the price.  How Mr. Crewe’s ears must tingle as he paces his headquarters in the Pelican!  Almost would it be sacrilege to set down cold, on paper, the words that come, burning, out of the Honourable Timothy’s loyal heart.  Here, gentlemen, is a man at last, not a mere puppet who signs his name when a citizen of New York pulls the string; one who is prepared to make any sacrifice,—­to spend his life, if need be, in their service. (A barely audible voice, before the cheering commences, “I guess that’s so.”) Humphrey Crewe needs no defence—­the Honourable Timothy avers—­at his hands, or any one’s.  Not merely an idealist, but a practical man who has studied the needs of the State; unselfish to the core; longing, like Washington, the Father of his Country, to remain in a beautiful country home, where he dispenses hospitality with a flowing hand to poor and rich alike, yet harking to the call of duty.  Leaving, like the noble Roman of old, his plough in the furrow—­(Same voice as before, “I wish he’d left his automobil’ thar!” Hisses and laughter.) The Honourable Timothy, undaunted, snatches his hand from the breast of his Prince Albert and flings it, with a superb gesture, towards the Pelican.  “Gentlemen, I have the honour to nominate to this convention that peerless leader for the right, the Honourable Humphrey Crewe of Leith—­our next governor.”

General Andrew Jackson himself, had he been alive and on this historic ground and chairman of that convention, could scarce have quelled the tumult aroused by this name and this speech—­much less General Doby.  Although a man of presence, measurable by scales with weights enough, our general has no more ponderosity now than a leaf in a mountain storm at Hale—­and no more control over the hurricane.  Behold him now, pounding with his gavel on something which should give forth a sound, but doesn’t.  Who is he (to change the speech’s figure—­not the general’s), who is he to drive a wild eight-horse team, who is fit only to conduct Mr. Flint’s oxen in years gone by?

It is a memorable scene, sketched to life for the metropolitan press.  The man on the chair, his face lighted by a fanatic enthusiasm, is the Honourable Hamilton Tooting, coatless and collarless, leading the cheers that shake the building, that must have struck terror to the soul of Augustus P. Flint himself—­fifty miles away.  But the endurance of the human throat is limited.