Do you remember that banquet at the Tremont In '97 on Jackson's day? Bryan and Altgeld walked together Out to the banquet room. That's the time he said the bolters must Bring fruits meet for repentance--ha! ha! Oh, Gawd!-- They never did it and they didn't have to, For they had made friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, Even as he did, a little later, in his own way. Well, Darrow was there that night. I thought it was terribly raw in him, But he said to Bryan, there, in a group: "You'd better go back to Lincoln and study Science, history, philosophy, And read Flaubert's Madam something-or-other, And quit this village religious stuff. You're head of the party before you are ready And a leader should lead with thought." And Bryan turned to the others and said: "Darrow's the only man in the world Who looks down on me for believing in God." "Your kind of a God," snapped Darrow. Honest, Ed, I didn't see this religious business In Bryan in '96 or 1900. Oh well, I knew he went to Church, And talked as statesmen do of God-- But McKinley did it, and I used to laugh: "We've got a man to match McKinley, And it's good for us, in a squeeze like this, We didn't nominate some fellow Ethical culture or Unitarian." You see, the newspapers and preachers then Were raising such a hullabaloo About irreligion and dishonesty, And calling old Altgeld an anarchist, And comparing us to Robespierre And the guillotine boys in France. And a little of this religion came in handy. The same as if you saw a Mason button on me, You'd know, you see--but Gee! He was 24-carat religious, A cover-to-cover man.... He was a trained collie, And he looked like a lion, There in the convention of '96--What do you know about that? * * * * *