Illegitimate children -- Fiction; Mothers and sons -- Fiction; Villages -- Fiction
The worthy Judge made precisely what manner of address must be made on
precisely such occasions. To him his audience was made up of fellow
citizens, ladies and gentlemen. He accosted them with the deference and
yet the confidence of some statesman of old. Indeed, he might have been
scarce less a figure than Senator Thomas Hart Benton himself, so
profuse--and so inaccurate--were the classical quotations which he saw
fit to employ. It had grown his custom to do this with care-free mind.
Indeed, there was but one here in this audience tonight who perhaps
might have chided him for his Greek--a young man who sat far back in the
rear, in a place near the door--a young man who none the less, it must
be confessed, paid small attention to the Hendersonian allusions which
had to do with literature, with history, the gentle arts, the culture,
the progress of our proud republic, and of this particular American
community.
So now it came on to the time of Reverend Henry B. Fullerton, who
likewise spoke of literature and culture, patriotism and the glories of
our republic. The other ministers also in due course, after certain
uneasy consultation of the clock upon the opposite wall, spoke much in
similar fashion.
After these formidable preliminaries, it was time for Judge Henderson to
give the real address of the evening--this latter now delivered with
frequent consultations of the large watch which he placed beside him on
the table. So presently he came to such portion of his speech as
requires the orator to say, "But, my friends, the hour grows late."
Whereafter presently, figuratively, he dismissed the audience with his
blessing, well satisfied from the applause that his campaign was doing
well. He had but casually and incidentally allowed it to be known that
his own annual check to the city library was for a thousand dollars--no
more than would cover the librarian's salary.
By this time, it was a half-hour past midnight, and none present might
say that he had not had full worth of all the moneys expended for this
entertainment. It had been a great evening for the candidate. Moreover,
most of the old ladies present had enjoyed themselves in social
conversation regarding the absorbing news of the day. As for the half
dozen young village beauties present, there was not one who did not know
precisely where Don Lane sat--not even Sally Lester, who irritated
Jerome Westbrook beyond measure when he saw her pretending to look at
the clock at the back of the hall to see what time it was. Really, as
Jerome Westbrook knew very well, she was only trying to see Don Lane,
the newest young man in town--wholly impossible socially, but one who
had made sudden history of interest in feminine eyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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