And then all the men were eclipsed by the entrance of Daniel Webster—no less a giant than Daniel Webster. As a citizen RoBards felt an awe for him; as a lawyer, a reverence. Patty gasped with pride at meeting the man. She bowed so low that she almost sat on the floor. And Webster, looking down on her, bent till his vast skull was almost on a level with Patty’s little china-doll head. Her humility was such a pretty tribute to his genius that his confusion was perfect. His mastiff jaws wagged with the shock of her grace. His huge eyes saddened in a distress of homage. For once he could find no words. There was only a groan of contentment in that columnar throat, equally famous for its thirst and for the eloquence of the angelic voice that stormed the senate chamber and shook the judicial benches, yet purled like a brook at a female ear. Patty almost swooned when she learned that she was to go out on Webster’s arm. When the black servants folded back the doors, a table like a lake of mahogany waited them, gleaming with a flotilla of heavily laden silver, platters, tureens, baskets, and bowls in a triple line. Patty and the leonine Daniel followed the lady of the mansion, and when she was formally handed to her throne, the clatter began. The servants fairly rained food upon the guests, soup and fish and ham and turkey, venison and mutton, corn and all the vegetables available, sweets of every savor, cheeses and fruits, claret and champagne and a dulcet Madeira brought down from the attic where it had spent its years swinging from the heat of the sun-baked roof to the chill of the long winters. RoBards noted that many of his old schoolmates, still boys in his eye, were far older than Patty had allowed him to be. And their wives were as shapeless as the haunches of meat whose slices they attacked without grace. Patty made a religion of little manners and charming affectations. She took off her gloves with caressing upward strokes and folded them under her napkin. She sipped her soup with a birdlike mincing that was beyond cavil. And when Mr. Webster, with old-fashioned courtesy, challenged her to champagne, she accepted the challenge, selecting the wine he named, held her glass to be filled, and while the bubbles tumbled and foamed to the brim and broke over it in a tiny spray, she looked into the monstrous eyes of the modern Demosthenes, and with the silent eloquence of her smile, nullified the ponderous phrases he would have rolled upon her. He found his voice later, but RoBards could hear Patty’s voice now and then, tinkling like raindrops between thunders. And finally he heard her murmur in little gasps: “Oh, Mr. Senator!—if only you—you!—would take my father’s case—against this wicked, wicked city—then—justice would be done—at last—for once at least.”