In the second, he had departed from his fixed habit of total abstinence. The love of strong drink ran high in his blood. Early in life he had decided that such indulgence would militate against success. So he had avoided even the mildest potations from thenceforward. To-night (his usually stolid nerves tense with the excitement of the grand cast he was making for “social recognition”) he had felt, as never before in campaign or in business climax, the need for stimulant to enable him to play his awkward rôle. Moreover—he had his son, Gerald’s, high authority for the statement—total abstinence was no longer in vogue among the elect. As soon, therefore, as he had taken his seat in the supper-room he had braced himself by a glass of champagne. The unwonted beverage sent a delicious glow through him. His puzzled brain cleared, his last doubts of the entertainment’s success began to fade. An obsequious waiter at his elbow hastened to refill the glass, and Conover, his eyes darting hither and thither among the guests to single out and dwell on the various faces he had so long and so vainly yearned to see in his house, absent-mindedly emptied it and another after it. He was talking assiduously to Mrs. Van Alstyne, whom at first he had found somewhat frigid and difficult; but who, he now discovered to his surprise, it was growing momentarily easier to entertain. He had had no idea of his own command of language. Supper was still in its early stages when a fourth glass of heady vintage champagne followed the other three. From doorways and walls his political followers looked on with amaze. To them the sight of the Boss drinking was the eighth wonder of the world. They nudged each other and muttered awed comments out of the corners of their mouths. But Caleb heeded this not at all. He was happy. Very happy. The party over which he had suffered such secret qualms and to secure the desired guests for which he had strained every atom of his vast political and business influence, was proving a marvellous success. At last he was in society. And he had thought the barriers of that Body so impassable! He was in society. At last. And talking with delightful, brilliant fluency with one of its acknowledged leaders. He had conquered. The waiter filled his glass for the fifth time. After all, champagne had an effect whiskey could never equal. The fifth draught (for he allowed but one swallow to the goblet) seemed to inspire him even more than had its predecessors. Then it was that fifty generations of Irishmen who, under the spell of liquor, acquired a flow of language not their own, clamored for voice in this their latest and greatest descendant. Now that he was in so foreign, brilliant a mood, what more apt than a graceful little speech of greeting to those his fellow-townsmen who had flocked thither to do him honor? The idea was sublime. Conover rose to his feet and rapped for silence. He would speak while the gift of eloquence was still strong upon him.