the part could so wonderfully deliver himself in
orational speeches on any topic of nations, commonwealths and empires.
If Rowell were less of an orator he would be more of a power as a
public man. Carrying around loaded blank pistols is not nearly so
congenial to most men as a cigar in the left hand vest pocket. There
is in most of us a strain of buncombe which we exhibit often when
others are not looking. I think Rowell exhibits most of his in solemn
form in public. If one has not what is called _savoir faire_ he must
make his abstractions and silences confoundedly interesting. Rowell
packs all his power into a speech. Therefore even his greatest
speeches are sometimes to some people a bore.

I think he must have risen to about his height of unceremonious
informality at a Peace dinner in London when he sat next to the
plenipotentiary from Serbia, to whom he remarked:

"I should think so many dinners and public functions would be hard on
your constitution."

"Yes," rejoined the Serbian with a gravely astute look at his
companion; "but we have an upper and a lower chamber."

Rowell told this on himself. Even that he could not have done five
years ago. Mingling with men more solemn than himself he observed the
inconvenience of solemnity. He really wants to be a conductor of the
little currents of energy that make men think and act in small groups.
Some good parson years ago should have encouraged him to smoke between
speeches.

Opportunity. This focuses the other two. Rowell has seldom neglected
this mistress. It is comparatively easy for many men to make
themselves at the Sign of the Dollar; as a rule more difficult at the
Sign of Culture. Mr. Rowell is a man of fine intellectual attainments,
which he has seldom failed to use in furthering his public success.
Yet he was a good while becoming incorporated into the body politic of
Liberalism. The world was his parish. Wesley was his idol; then
Laurier. Between these two it is a marvel that even at the rather late
age of forty-four he came to the leadership of Liberalism in Ontario.
Here he became the prophet who would abolish the bar even before its
time, not without provocation. There had been stories of wild drinking
escapades among some of the Liberal leaders in Queen's Park. Mr.
Rowell can therefore be amply forgiven for having been the instigator
of that poster, "Is That You, Daddy?"

This can be remembered from his five years of misfit rule