sent back in 1849, he had the chance, rarely accorded any one except a histrionic star, to bow himself off the stage a second time. During the years of his greatest activity, every announcement that he was to speak made a gala day at the Capitol. “The gallery was full,” wrote Margaret Bayard Smith of one such occasion, “to a degree that endangered it; even the outer entries were thronged. The gentlemen are grown very gallant and attentive, and, as it was impossible to reach the ladies through the gallery, a new mode was invented for supplying them with oranges, etc. They tied them up in handkerchiefs, to each of which was fixed a note indicating for whom it was designed, and then fastened to a long pole. This was taken on the floor of the house and handed up to the ladies who sat in the front of the gallery. These presentations were frequent and quite amusing, even in the midst of Mr. Clay’s speech. I and the ladies near me divided what was brought with each other, and were as social as if acquainted.” The orator who could hold his own against such a background of confusion might well take pride in his powers; but the universal testimony was that Clay’s wonderfully modulated voice and magnetic charm of personality triumphed over everything. He was so attractive a man that even Calhoun, with whom he was at swords-drawn in every forensic battle, could not forbear wringing his hand with a “God bless you!” at their final parting in the Senate chamber; and John Randolph, with whom he had clashed repeatedly and whose coat he had punctured in a duel, insisted on being carried to the Capitol, while dying, and laid on a couch where Clay was going to deliver a much-heralded speech. Possibly one of the secrets of Clay’s success in winning people was illustrated in his quarrel with Senator King of Alabama, which began on the Senate floor and led to the passage of a challenge. Friends interfered, and after some days a peace was [Illustration: _Mount Vernon_] patched up, both men publicly withdrawing their offensive remarks, and a brother Senator making some appropriate gratulatory observations on the reconciliation. Then Clay gave the final dramatic touch to the scene by crossing the chamber to where his late adversary sat, saying aloud: “King, give me a pinch of your snuff!” King, surprised, sprang up and held out both a snuff-box and an open hand, while Senators and spectators applauded to the echo.