privilege to introduce, that evening, a gentleman who
needed no introduction to that assemblage. What citizen of Carlow needed
an introduction, asked the speaker, to the orator they had applauded
in the campaigns of the last twenty years, the statesman author of
the Halloway Bill, the most honored citizen of the neighboring and
flourishing county and city of Amo? And, the speaker would say, that if
there were one thing the citizens of Carlow could be held to envy the
citizens of Amo, it was the Honorable Kedge Halloway, the thinker,
to whose widely-known paper they were about to have the pleasure and
improvement of listening.

The introduction was so vehemently applauded that, had there been
present a person connected with the theatrical profession, he might have
been nervous for fear the introducer had prepared no encore. "Kedge is
too smart to take it all to himself," commented Mr. Martin. "He knows
it's half account of the man that said it."

He was not mistaken. Mr. Halloway had learned a certain perceptiveness
on the stump. Resting one hand upon his unfolded notes upon the table,
he turned toward the melancholy young man (who had subsided into the
small of his back in his chair) and, after clearing his throat, observed
with sudden vehemence that he must thank his gifted friend for his
flattering remarks, but that when he said that Carlow envied Amo a
Halloway, it must be replied that Amo grudged no glory to her sister
county of Carlow, but, if Amo could find envy in her heart it would be
because Carlow possessed a paper so sterling, so upright, so brilliant,
so enterprising as the "Carlow County Herald," and a journalist so
talented, so gifted, so energetic, so fearless, as its editor.

The gentleman referred to showed very faint appreciation of these
ringing compliments. There was a lamp on the table beside him, against
which, to the view of Miss Sherwood of Rouen, his face was silhouetted,
and very rarely had it been her lot to see a man look less enthusiastic
under public and favorable comment of himself. She wondered if he,
also, remembered the Muggleton cricket match and the subsequent dinner
oratory.

The lecture proceeded. The orator winged away to soary heights with
gestures so vigorous as to cause admiration for his pluck in making use
of them on such a night; the perspiration streamed down his face, his
neck grew purple, and he dared the very face of apoplexy, binding his
auditors with a double spell.