;
there was not a single Republican office-holder in the county.
The only compensation for a Republican accepting a nomination
and conducting a canvass, with its large expenses and certain
defeat, was that for the rest of his life he was given as an
evidence of honor the title of the office for which he ran, and so
the county was full of "judges, Mr. District Attorneys, State
Senators, and Congressmen" who had never been elected.

We arrived at Reading after midday. The leading street, a very
broad one, was also on certain days the market-place. A friend
of the governor, who had a handsome house on this street, had
the whole party for luncheon. The luncheon was an elaborate
banquet. Governor Curtin came to me and said: "You go out and
entertain the crowd, which is getting very impatient, and in about
twenty minutes I will send some one to relieve you." It was
raining in torrents; the crowd shouted to me encouragingly: "Never
mind the rain; we are used to that, but we never heard you." As
I would try to stop they would shout: "Go ahead!" In the meantime
the banquet had turned into a festive occasion, with toasts and
speeches. I had been speaking over two hours before the governor
and his party appeared. They had been dining, and the Eighteenth
Amendment had not been dreamed of. I was drenched to the skin,
but waited until the governor had delivered his twenty-minute
speech; then, without stopping for the other orators, I went over
to the house, stripped, dried myself, and went to bed.

Utterly exhausted with successive days and nights of this experience,
I did not wake until about eight o'clock in the evening. Then
I wandered out in the street, found the crowd still there, and
the famous John W. Forney making a speech. They told me that
he had been speaking for four hours, delivering an historical address,
but had only reached the administration of General Jackson. I never
knew how long he kept at it, but there was a tradition with our party
that he was still speaking when the train left the next morning.

Governor Curtin was an ideal party leader and candidate. He was
one of the handsomest men of his time, six feet four inches in
height, perfectly proportioned and a superb figure. He never
spoke over twenty minutes, but it was the talk in the familiar
way of an expert to his neighbors. He had a cordial and captivating
manner, which speedily made him the idol of the crowd and a most
agreeable comp