man certainly does know how to kid these roughnecks along!"

Men in black sateen shirts, their faces new-washed but with a hint of
grime under their eyes, were loitering on the broad stairs up to
the hall. Babbitt's party politely edged through them and into the
whitewashed room, at the front of which was a dais with a red-plush
throne and a pine altar painted watery blue, as used nightly by the
Grand Masters and Supreme Potentates of innumerable lodges. The hall
was full. As Babbitt pushed through the fringe standing at the back, he
heard the precious tribute, "That's him!" The chairman bustled down the
center aisle with an impressive, "The speaker? All ready, sir! Uh--let's
see--what was the name, sir?"

Then Babbitt slid into a sea of eloquence:

"Ladies and gentlemen of the Sixteenth Ward, there is one who cannot be
with us here to-night, a man than whom there is no more stalwart Trojan
in all the political arena--I refer to our leader, the Honorable Lucas
Prout, standard-bearer of the city and county of Zenith. Since he is not
here, I trust that you will bear with me if, as a friend and neighbor,
as one who is proud to share with you the common blessing of being a
resident of the great city of Zenith, I tell you in all candor, honesty,
and sincerity how the issues of this critical campaign appear to one
plain man of business--to one who, brought up to the blessings of
poverty and of manual labor, has, even when Fate condemned him to sit
at a desk, yet never forgotten how it feels, by heck, to be up at
five-thirty and at the factory with the ole dinner-pail in his hardened
mitt when the whistle blew at seven, unless the owner sneaked in ten
minutes on us and blew it early! (Laughter.) To come down to the basic
and fundamental issues of this campaign, the great error, insincerely
promulgated by Seneca Doane--"

There were workmen who jeered--young cynical workmen, for the most part
foreigners, Jews, Swedes, Irishmen, Italians--but the older men, the
patient, bleached, stooped carpenters and mechanics, cheered him; and
when he worked up to his anecdote of Lincoln their eyes were wet.

Modestly, busily, he hurried out of the hall on delicious applause, and
sped off to his third audience of the evening. "Ted, you better drive,"
he said. "Kind of all in after that spiel. Well, Paul, how'd it go? Did
I get 'em?"

"Bully! Corking! You had a lot of pep."

Mrs. Babbitt worshiped, "Oh, it was fine! So clear and interes