and then the
loving mother--ah, those loving mothers, will their boys ever realize
how much they owe them!--threw open the doors and gave him freedom, an
opportunity to win fame and fortune in the great city of Paris.

And now what mattered it that his clothes were poor, that his food was
scant, and that it was often bitterly cold in his little garret. If not
for his own sake, he MUST for hers "come home a somebody."

The doors which led to a wider future were already opening. The
professors at the Sorbonne appreciated his great intellect and
originality. "You have a true vocation," said one. "Follow it. But go
to the bar, where your voice, which is one in a thousand, will carry
you on, study and intelligence aiding. The lecture room is a narrow
theater. If you like, I will write to your father to tell him what my
opinion of you is." And he wrote, "The best investment you ever made
would be to spend what money you can divert from your business in
helping your son to become an advocate."

To such good purpose did the young student use his time that within two
years he won his diploma. Still too young to be admitted to the bar, he
spent a year studying life in Paris, listening to the debates in the
Corps Legislatif, reading and debating in the radical club which he had
organized, making himself ready at every point for the great
opportunity which gained him a national reputation and made him the
idol of the masses.

In 1868 his masterly defense of Delescluze, the radical editor, against
the prosecution of the Imperial government, brought the brilliant but
hitherto unknown young lawyer prominently before the public. He lost
his case, but won fame. Gambetta had waited eighteen months for his
first brief, and five times eighteen months for his first great case.
This case proved to be the initial step that led him from victory to
victory, until, after the fall of Napoleon at Sedan, he became
practically Dictator of France. He was, more than any one man, the
maker of the French Republic, whose rights and liberties he ever
defended, even at the risk of his life. He died December 31, 1882.

Well had he fulfilled the hopes and ambitions of his loving mother,
well had he answered the pathetic appeal, "Try to come home a somebody."

ANDREW JACKSON THE BOY WHO "NEVER WOULD GIVE UP"

"Sir, I am a prisoner of war, and demand to be treated as such," was
the spirited reply of Andrew Jackson to a British officer who had
c