The next day he met Mr. Bostwick in the street, but passed him by with a stony glare of oblivion. He felt he really could not afford to know this gentleman in the future. Mr. Bostwick was naturally indignant at the direct snub; yet in his mind lingered a faint memory of some quite unusual occurrences at his dinner party the evening before, and he hardly knew whether he dared resent the senator’s treatment or not. The political meeting was the feature of the day, for the senator’s eloquence was well known in Boston. So the big hall was crowded with people, and in one of the front rows sat the Bostwick family, with the learned Yale professor beside them. They all looked tired and pale, as if they had passed a rather dissipated evening, and the senator was rendered so nervous by seeing them that he refused to look in their direction a second time. While the mayor was introducing him the great man sat fidgeting in his chair; and, happening to put his thumb and finger into his vest pocket, he found the lavender-colored bonbon he had placed there the evening before. “This may clear my throat,” thought the senator, and slipped the bonbon into his mouth. A few minutes afterwards he arose before the vast audience, which greeted him with enthusiastic plaudits. “My friends,” began the senator, in a grave voice, “this is a most impressive and important occasion.” Then he paused, balanced himself upon his left foot, and kicked his right leg into the air in the way favored by ballet-dancers! There was a hum of amazement and horror from the spectators, but the senator appeared not to notice it. He whirled around upon the tips of his toes, kicked right and left in a graceful manner, and startled a bald-headed man in the front row by casting a languishing glance in his direction. Suddenly Claribel Sudds, who happened to be present, uttered a scream and sprang to her feet. Pointing an accusing finger at the dancing senator, she cried in a loud voice: “That’s the man who stole my bonbons! Seize him! Arrest him! Don’t let him escape!” But the ushers rushed her out of the hall, thinking she had gone suddenly insane; and the senator’s friends seized him firmly and carried him out the stage entrance to the street, where they put him into an open carriage and instructed the driver to take him home. The effect of the magic bonbon was still powerful enough to control the poor senator, who stood upon the rear seat of the carriage and danced energetically all the way home, to the delight of the crowd of small boys who followed the carriage and the grief of the sober-minded citizens, who shook their heads sadly and whispered that “another good man had gone wrong.”