ad never made a speech in his life, but he fell into the same error
that hundreds of other men have fallen into. It seems so strange that a
man won't learn he must speak his piece as a boy if he in-tends to be
an orator when he is grown, but he seems to think all he has to do is to
hold an office to be a great orator.

So he came up to the front, and brought with him a speech which he
had learned by heart walking up and down the pasture, where he had
frightened the cattle. He brought the manuscript with him and spread
it out on the table so as to be sure he might see it. He adjusted his
spectacles and leaned over it for a moment and marched back on that
platform, and then came forward like this--tramp, tramp, tramp. He must
have studied the subject a great deal, when you come to think of it,
because he assumed an "elocutionary" attitude. He rested heavily upon
his left heel, threw back his shoulders, slightly advanced the right
foot, opened the organs of speech, and advanced his right foot at an
angle of forty-five. As he stood in that elocutionary attitude, friends,
this is just the way that speech went. Some people say to me, "Don't you
exaggerate?" That would be impossible. But I am here for the lesson and
not for the story, and this is the way it went:

"Fellow-citizens--" As soon as he heard his voice his fingers began to
go like that, his knees began to shake, and then he trembled all over.
He choked and swallowed and came around to the table to look at the
manuscript. Then he gathered himself up with clenched fists and came
back: "Fellow-citizens, we are Fellow-citizens, we are--we are--we
are--we are--we are--we are very happy--we are very happy--we are very
happy. We are very happy to welcome back to their native town these
soldiers who have fought and bled--and come back again to their native
town. We are especially--we are especially--we are especially. We are
especially pleased to see with us to-day this young hero" (that meant
me)--"this young hero who in imagination" (friends, remember he said
that; if he had not said "in imagination" I would not be egotistic
enough to refer to it at all)--"this young hero who in imagination we
have seen leading--we have seen leading--leading. We have seen leading
his troops on to the deadly breach. We have seen his shining--we have
seen his shining--his shining--his shining sword--flashing. Flashing in
the sunlight, as he shouted to his troops, 'Come on'!"

Oh dear, dea