Now for the neat introductory speech that the old man had prepared so carefully and rehearsed until he knew every word by heart. He stepped forward, and gazed appealingly at the silent audience; but no word came from his dry lips. He swallowed convulsively, and appeared to be struggling with himself. A titter of laughter sounded from the back of the room. The old man's face became fiery red and then deathly pale. He looked helplessly and pitifully from side to side. "Wind him up!" shouted a voice. "He's stopped short, never to go again," called another. "He's an old fraud, and his show's a fake!" "Speech! speech!" "No; a song! Let old dot-and-carry-one give us a song!" "Oh, shut up! Don't you see he's a ballet-dancer?" And so the derisive jeerings of this audience, like those of another twenty years before, hailed Cap'n Cod's second failure. His confidence in himself, his years of experience, the memory of what he ought to say, all vanished the moment he faced that mass of upturned faces, and he was once more the dumb, trembling Codringhampton of twenty years before. A mist swam before his eyes, he groped blindly with his hands, the derisive yells of the river-men, who were endeavoring to secure their money's worth of amusement from this pitiful spectacle, grew fainter and fainter in his ears. He tottered backward, and would have fallen, had not a young man from the audience sprang to his assistance. Very tenderly he helped the old man from the stage and into the friendly shadows of the side scenes. In another moment he reappeared. With flashing eyes he stepped in front of the turbulent audience and held up his hand. The curiosity of the river-men was sufficient to produce an almost instant silence, which in another second might have changed into an angry roar. Who was this young fellow? What business had he to interfere with their fun? What was he going to say? He'd better be careful! They were not in a humor to be trifled with. For a moment he looked steadily at them. Then he said: