in a single bench vacant; from
the front row, where sat Buck Malone, almost smiling, to the back wall,
where De Soto with some Indians and mailed companions was discovering
the Mississippi--from stage to entrance, not a vacant seat. What hopes
for a man in a fighting audience like that if he could but win them to
him!

Tim was alone on the stage.

"Gentlemen," he began, "the Republican party in New Ireland seems to be
very busy to-night. One-half of it has to attend a conference of bank
cashiers over in Rocktown; and Rocktown, it appears, is four miles in a
buggy over a rough road. That rough road and the buggy are, of course,
an incontrovertible argument, gentlemen. And the other half has a rich
prospective customer for a couple of town lots--also over in Rocktown. A
busy little place that Rocktown must be! I don't wonder you're smiling.
I smiled myself when they told me.

"But if they are not here, gentlemen, to accredit me, I am here to speak
for myself. And, as you see, there is the table, the chair, the
ice-water pitcher, the empty glass, all as"--he smiled down at the boss
in the front row--"as Mr. Malone said it would be. 'Twas this very
afternoon Mr. Malone spoke of it; and, myself happening to hear him, I
would not for a lord lieutenant's income disappoint him. 'Twas my good
old mother--God rest her soul!--who used to say--and many's the time she
said it: 'Timmie dear, don't never disappoint people if you can help
it.' And I never do--especially when it don't cost me anything; for
water is the only thing I had to bring into the hall to-night--and
water, gentlemen, is cheap."

"Yes, an' talk's cheap, too!"

Tim bowed to the voice and smiled with the laugh that followed.

"God knows it is cheap. If it wasn't 'tisn't the likes o' me could
afford to be handing it out to you to-night, and no charge for admission
at the door."

"Say, Buck, his ten minutes'll be used up before ever he gets started!"
came a voice from midway of the hall.

"True for you, boy. And so I'll be introducing myself. My history is
short. Riley is my name, Timothy Joseph Riley--baptized by Father Kiley,
in the parish of Ballymallow--and I'm a Republican."

"And there's what we'd like to have you tell us, Misther Riley--how came
you to be a Republican?"

"Yes, you blarneyin' turncoat--how came ye?"

A man in the front row stood up to say that last, a rugged-looking man,
who looked as if he would like mighty well to jump up on the