ssful social career.

"It was when Webb was a young fellow, you know, just beginning to be
heard of as an advocate. He was at his first convention, eager to have
his say, hard to keep silent; and he was asked to second the nomination
of Reed, a boyish-looking chap of twenty-six. He didn't know Reed from
Adam, but he was ambitious to be heard just then--and he'd have spoken
for the devil if they'd have given him a chance. Well, he launched out
on his speech in fine style. He began with Noah--as they all did in
those days--glided down the centuries to Seneca and Caesar, touched upon
Adam Smith and Jefferson, and finally landed in the arms of Monroe P.
Reed. There he grew fairly ecstatic over his subject. He spoke of him as
'the lawyer sprung, full-armed, from the head of learning,' as the
'nonpareil Democrat who clove, as Ruth to Naomi, to the immortal
principles of Virginia Democracy,' and in a glorious period, he rounded
off 'the incomparable services which Monroe P. Reed had rendered the
deathless cause of the Confederacy!' In an instant the house came down.
There was a roar of laughter, and somebody in the gallery sang out: 'He
was at his mother's breast!'

"For a moment Webb quailed, but his wits never left him. He faced the
man in the gallery like Apollo come to judgment, and his fine voice rang
to the roof. 'I know it, sir, I know it,' he thundered, 'but Monroe P.
Reed was one of the stoutest breastworks of the Confederacy. I have it
from his mother, sir!'

"Of course the house went wild. He was the youngest man on the floor,
and they gave him an ovation. Since then, he's learned some things, and
he's become the only orator left among us."

The colonel finished hurriedly as his apple pie was placed before him,
and did not speak again during dinner.

"He is an orator," said Galt. "He doesn't use much clap-trap business
either. I've never heard him drag in the Medes and Persians, and I could
count his classical quotations on my fingers. Personally, I like Burr's
way better--it's saner and it's sounder--but Webb knows how to talk,
and he has a voice like a silver bell--Ah, here he is."

As he spoke there was a stir in the crowd at the doorway and Dudley Webb
entered and took the nearest vacant seat.

The first impression of him at this time was one of extreme
picturesqueness. A slight tendency to stoutness gave dignity to a figure
which, had it been thin, would have been insignificant, and served to
accentuate