"Details," he cried; "don't you worry about them. I'll give them to you in a minute, but they aren't the things to worry over. Here's the big thing; the one we've got to hang up on the wall, and look at a hundred times a day. What are we going to do, what are we going to say, to make the average man the country through, believe in us? That's the puzzle. We've got to be good enough judges of human nature and things in general to tell that, and the rest's easy. I've just told you my idea; the one big thing is, 'Honesty is the best policy;' you've got either to be honest, or to have the people think you're honest, and you've got to show at least a fair measure of ability, and after that, you needn't be so careful. You can do lots of things; you can be too radical for a lot of people; you can be too conservative for a lot more; but, whether they agree with you or not, so long as they think you're honest and fairly capable, why, good men, and especially good leaders, are scarce, and they'll stick. You'll find that's so, every time." Gordon nodded. "Well," he admitted, "I must say I think you're pretty nearly right. Let's assume that you are, anyway, and then you can go ahead and take up some of these details I want to know about. That's where, as I just said, my ideas are vague." Doyle grinned cheerfully. "I'll clear 'em up for you," he observed, with confidence. "That part's easy compared with the rest. First off, you've got to have six or eight speeches on different topics. A man, to be in the public eye, has got to be a mighty versatile proposition these days. We go crazy over so many different things we've really got to be a nation of cranks, pretty near, and every crank has to be got at on his specialty, if it's a possible thing. You want a good up-to-date talk on financial questions, and work things to get a chance to spring it at Board of Trade dinners, and that sort of thing; you've been an athlete,--work up a talk on athletics, and you'll find that'll go great almost anywhere; your base-ball crank's a power in the land to-day; he has to be catered to, and written for, and everything else. And then you'll have to mix a little in the political game, too. Not too much, at first, anyway; but still politics is the big thing, after all, and you've got to have a good safe speech ready on the issues of the day; you never can tell,--a speech, a sentence from a speech, even, may make a man famous overnight. Versatility; broad-minded interest in everything; and always ready to see that the rights of the people are looked out for; pretty good, what?" Gordon smiled. "Do I get time for anything else except speechmaking?" he asked dryly.