o them and spoke on.
All the correspondents were writing rapidly, eagerly, and with rapt
attention, while Sylvia's eyes still sparkled and flashed.

"Well, the members of this committee and the man met," continued the
candidate, "and from the first they treated him as one who might have an
opinion of his own but who must not be allowed to express it. They were
not bad men, perhaps, but a long course of exclusive attention to their
own personal interests had, we will say, narrowed them. That personal
advantage was always dangling before them; they could see nothing else.
The sun rose and set in its interest, and such an affair as the
government of a mighty nation like the United States must be regulated
with sole regard to it. They thought they knew everything in the world
when they knew only one thing in it. Their ignorance was equalled only
by their presumption."

The rolling cheer came once more from the audience, but Harley saw that
the faces of the committee had turned red. They whispered no more, but
stared angrily and uneasily at Jimmy Grayson, who did not notice them.

"How glad I am that I sharpened all my lead-pencils!" said Hobart, in a
low tone to Harley.

But Harley never stopped writing.

"They did not even have the tact to treat this candidate with courtesy
and consideration," continued Mr. Grayson. "They lectured him on his
comparative youth and his ignorance of the world, when it was they who
were ignorant. They told him, without hesitation, regardless of his own
opinion and the fact that he was a free man among free men, that he must
not speak on this issue. They threatened him."

"Did he take the bluff?" shouted a big man in the audience.

"Wait and we shall see," said Jimmy Grayson, sweetly. "They were
entitled to their opinion, and he would have heard their advice, but
their manner was intolerable; they undertook to treat him as a child.
They called him to a conference, and there they laid down the law to him
as a school-master would order a sulking child to be good."

"Did he take the bluff?" again shouted the big man in the crowd.

"Wait and we shall see," repeated Jimmy Grayson, as sweetly as ever.
"Well, this conference came to pass, and it lasted a long time, but only
the committee talked; they gave the candidate scarcely a chance to say a
word. They treated him with increasing arrogance. They said that if he
declared himself upon this great issue they would bolt the party and let
him