of quotations from Daniel
Webster. He called him the Great Expounder, and a great statesman, and a
number of other names, and wound up by asserting that the opinion of
such a great man as that settled the matter. There was a good deal of
applause given to the red-headed young man as he was sitting down, and
Billy took advantage of it; that is, before he knew exactly what he was
doing, he was on his feet, and shouted, "Mr. President!--ladies and
gentlemen--"

"Mr. Morton has the floor," remarked the president, very dignifiedly;
and Billy, as he afterward said of himself, "was pinned."

There was no escape for him now, and when Grandfather Morton pounded
with his cane, and shouted, "Platform!" dozens of other people took it
up, and it was "Platform!" "Platform!" "Platform!" all over the hall. He
knew what it meant. All the favorite speakers were sent forward in that
way, and it was a great compliment; but Billy thought he must have
walked forty miles, from the tired feeling in his legs, when he got
there. Oh, how hot that room was just then, and what a dreadful thing it
was to have a crowd like that suddenly begin to keep still! They must
have been holding their breaths.

Billy knew his speech was in him, for it had been swelling and swelling
while the others were speaking, but he could not quite get any of it
very close to his mouth at that trying moment.

Stiller and stiller grew the hall, and Billy had a dim notion that it
was beginning to turn around.

"Mr. President, ladies, and gentlemen--"

He heard some of the boys over by the window crack some pea-nuts and
giggle.

"--I don't care a cent for Daniel Webster--"

Billy paused, and was hunting desperately for the next word; but
Grandfather Morton had voted against Mr. Webster a good many times, and
down came the old gentleman's cane on the floor.

That was the signal for a storm of applause all over the hall; but Billy
groped in every corner of his mind in vain for the rest of his speech.
Whether he had left it in the garret or the barn, or up in the pasture
lot, it was gone; and when the stamping and clapping stopped, and the
audience began to listen again, there was nothing more for them to hear.

It was so terribly hot in that hall; and it grew all the more like the
Fourth of July, or a baker's oven, all the way to his seat, after Billy
gave the matter up, and walked down from the platform.

But how they did cheer then!

The boys did their best, an