ause which followed died away, Brother John,
half arising in his seat, vehemently exclaimed,

"Mrs. Worshipful Master, _I never told him to ask no such damn fool
question!"_

XXV
A QUESTION OF AVAILABILITY

A POLITICAL BANQUET IN ATLANTA, GA.--GENERAL GORDON PROPOSED
"THE DEMOCRACY OF ILLINOIS"--THE WRITER'S RESPONSE--A DESIRE IN
ILLINOIS TO NOMINATE THE HON. DAVID DAVIS FOR PRESIDENT.

About the year of grace 1889, a number of distinguished statesmen were
invited to attend a political banquet to be given by the local
Democratic Association of the splendid city of Atlanta, Georgia.
Among the guests were Representative Flower of New York and General
Collins of Massachusetts; the chief guest of the occasion was the
Hon. David B. Hill, then the Governor of New York. The banquet
was under the immediate auspices of the lamented Gordon, and of
Grady of glorious memory. The board literally groaned under the
rarest viands, and Southern hospitality was at its zenith. It was,
all in all, an occasion to live in memory. I was not one of the
invited guests of the committee, but being in a neighboring city
was invited by Mr. Grady to be present.

At the conclusion of the feast, a toast was proposed to "The Gallant
Democracy of New York." Glasses were touched and the enthusiasm
was unbounded. The toast was of course responded to by the
distinguished Governor of the Empire State. He was at his best.
His speech, splendid in thought and diction, was heard with
breathless interest.

The keynote was struck, and speech after speech followed in the
proper vein. There was no discordant note, the burden of every
speech being the gallant Democracy and splendid statesmanship of
the great State of New York.

When the distinguished guests had all spoken, the master of
ceremonies, General Gordon, proposed a toast to "The Democracy
of Illinois," and called upon me to respond. I confessed that I
was only an average Democrat from Illinois; that way out there
we were content to be of the rank and file, and of course to follow
the splendid leadership and the gallant Democracy of which we
had heard so much. To vote for a New York candidate had by long
usage become a fixed habit with us, in fact, we would hardly know how
to go about voting for a candidate from any other State; and I then
related an incident on the question of supporting the ticket, which
I thought might be to the point.

In 1872, in the portion of Illinois in wh