The toastmaster had risen and was rapping a spoon against his plate. The ambitious scribe and the human beehive subsided, but Rawley observed that the reporter had pulled up a chair and was preparing to camp at his elbow and Peter’s. Well, why not? he thought headily. A man like Peter could go far in the world, give him a chance. And this might be the chance. A desert man who spoke calmly of budgeting a million dollars, the savings of a lifetime for three men, to spend in secret upon a project over which the whole nation was arguing, and who could make a talk like that the first time he ever faced great men was, to say the least, unusual. He glanced sidelong at Peter, who had straightened and folded his arms, gravely prepared to give his full attention to the speakers. There would be no word out of him now, Rawley knew. As well expect a devout old lady to divulge her recipe for piccalilli in church. He turned his head and whispered behind his hand to the reporter: “Stick around. I’ll do what I can.” The reporter patted his shoulder gratefully, and Rawley came to attention, stifling a yawn. It was so like every other banquet, and the speeches were so like all the other speeches on the same subject! He listened with the same bored loyalty with which the workers in the Liberty Loan drives and all the other drives toiled through their patriotic programme night after night, day after day. It did not lessen their patriotism that the workers sometimes wearied of the same old arguments, the stereotyped appeals to the patriotism of the public. He wished that Peter might rise and say what he had said to the Commission, a couple of hours ago. That would open their eyes! However, the speeches which were so old to the visiting great ones were not old to Las Vegas, and they were not old to Peter. There was the usual appeal for sympathy with the project under the direct supervision of the government, to which Peter listened closely, his head turned a bit sidewise so that he would not miss a word of it. The reporter was quietly sketching his profile on a small pad, but Peter never guessed that.