Daniel Webster."
He was about to address this massive figure, when it turned and looked
upon him with rolling orbs like diamonds in dark caves.

"Brandy," said the great man, "'tis the drink of a gentleman, and the
stimulus of oratory. But public life requires a thousand stomachs. Who
could have saved the Constitution on only one?"

"Poor ghost!" thought Andrew Waples. "Yet here is a milder man, also
of mighty girth, like the frame of a mastodon, transparent. Your name,
my friend?"

"John Meredith Clayton, of Delaware! I filled my paunch of midnights
with chicken soup. I arose from bed to riot in gravy. Ye who have
livers and intestines, think of my fame and fate!"

The old man sobbed as he receded, and Waples had only time to get a
glimpse of the next trio before they were upon him.

"I agree with Commodore Vanderbilt," said the other, the wearer of a
rubicund face, and great blue eyes. "My _forte_ was oysters and
economy. I grew wondrous fat and conservative, and one day awoke with
a stomach that exclaimed, 'I have become round, so that you can
trundle me for the exercise you deprived me of.' Henceforward, not
even the unequalled advantages of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad gave
me pleasure. I live like a skeleton world, without an inner globe,
without a paunch. Beware?"

"Well," cried Mr. Waples, "it is a singular thing that the
conservative as well as the volatile lose their full habits. How is it
with Colonel Tom Scott, I wonder?"

"No rest," exclaimed a full-necked man, "I eat at figures, and think
in my sleeping car. Go slow, go fast, young man, 'But it is even,
heads I win, stomach you lose!'"

The shaggy iron-gray whiskers and hair of Charles Sumner were well
known to Mr. Waples, as that great Senator strutted down the maple
paths. "You here, also!" shouted Mr. Waples.

"Ay!" answered the champion. "Freedom is not worth enjoying without
the gastric juice. The taste of Chateau Yquem pursues me through
eternity. There are times when Plymouth Rock is a pennyweight in value
compared to High Rock at Saratoga, and all the acts of Congress
foolish beside a pint of Congress water!"

A tall and elegant man came by and said: "I was the reviver of the
running turf. My stomach was tough as my four-in-hand. 'Twas Angostura
nipped my bud. It was, by Saint Jerome!"

Another passer, with a dark skin and a merry twinkle, said: "Uncle
John's under the weather to-night. But he can lay out another
generation yet.