But at the bar banquet, having drunk wine, he spoke at length, and as he progressed so loved the sound of his own voice, that when he sat down he found himself for the first time in his life in an oratorical perspiration. And then, before the flush of his intellectual activity had left him, ideas more brilliant than those he had had while on his feet came to him in such profusion that he had longed to repeat his effort. He felt that he could do so much better, though he felt that he had done well, for the long board, sweeping away with its glistening glass, and surrounded by so many ruddy men in brave shirt-fronts, had run round with applause. To crown his triumph the man next to him had said: "Judge, why don't you take the stump?" The words had coursed gladly through his veins like the wine he had drunk. He felt that he had found himself at last. The sense of triumph had not altogether left him by the next morning, and as he sat at his late breakfast at his hotel, seeking an account of the banquet in the _Courier_, his name had suddenly leaped to his eyes out of all the thousands of words packed on the page, and he read with a gasp a despatch from Springfield, which reviewed political conditions in the state. The paragraph devoted to the Thirteenth Congressional District said, among other things: "Judge Bromley thus far has not taken the stump, and the impression is general that he is conscious of his own limitations as an orator. In the Supreme Court, arguing a case for some of his wealthy clients, he is perfectly at home, but he is not the kind of man that takes on the stump before a promiscuous crowd. Realizing this, the astute managers of his campaign have kept the judge at home and are making a still hunt. Meanwhile, young Jerry Garwood, who has oratorical powers of a high order, and who has unsuccessfully tried to draw Bromley into a joint debate, is speaking nightly to big audiences all over the District." The judge grew angry as he read this, and he made his resolve in that hour. A few days later, when the excitement of his success at the bar banquet had left him, and he imagined himself speaking to jostling thousands before him, under the flare and swirl of torches' yellow flames, he would turn cold with fear. But he was a determined man, and he could not resist the pleasing sound of the words that announced his intention to take the stump. Proclamation was duly made, after what he politely called his conference with the committee, that he would open his speaking tour in Grand Prairie, with some more phrases, equally pleasing to him, about "throwing down the gauntlet," and "carrying the war into the enemy's country."