though no women were to be present at the "feed" a few
ladies were to occupy seats in a gallery, and I was to be one of them.

I had played with my temptation too long by this time to shrink from the
dangerous exaltation which I knew the occasion would cause, so when the
day came I went to the hotel in a fever of pleasure and pride.

The luncheon was nearly over, the speeches were about to begin, and the
ladies' gallery was buzzing like a hive of bees, when I took my seat in
it. Two bright young American women sitting next to me were almost as
excited as myself, and looking down at the men through a pair of
opera-glasses they were asking each other which was Martin, whereupon my
vanity, not to speak of my sense of possession, was so lifted up that I
pointed him out to them, and then borrowed their glasses to look at the
chairman.

He seemed to me to have that light of imagination in his eyes which was
always blazing in Martin's, and when he began to speak I thought I
caught the note of the same wild passion.

He said they were that day opening a new chapter in the wonderful book
of man's story, and though the dangers of the great deep might never be
entirely overcome, and the wind would continue to blow as it listed, yet
the perils of the one and the movements of the other were going to be
known to, and therefore checked by, the human family.

After that, and a beautiful tribute to Martin as a man, (that everybody
who had met him had come to love him, and that there must be something
in the great solitudes of the silent white world to make men simple and
strong and great, as the sea made them staunch and true) he drank to the
success of the expedition, and called on Martin to respond to the toast.

There was a great deal of cheering when Martin rose, but I was so
nervous that I hardly heard it. He was nervous too, as I could plainly
see, for after a few words of thanks, he began to fumble the sheets of a
speech which he and I had prepared together, trying to read it, but
losing his place and even dropping his papers.

Beads of perspiration were starting from my forehead and I knew I was
making noises in my throat, when all at once Martin threw his papers on
the table and said, in quite another voice:

"Ship-mates, I mean gentlemen, I never could write a speech in my life,
and you see I can't read one, but I know what I want to say and if
you'll take it as it comes here goes."

Then in the simple style of a sail