ister who
lived but a few hours.

Abel Gallup's sister came to keep house for them, and luckily, she,
like his wife, was sensible and kindly, but she stood in great awe of
her brother and never dreamt of criticising his conduct. Now his wife
had never spared him her caustic, common-sense comments. Politics,
especially where they might have affected the well-being of the child,
were strictly kept in their proper place, And naturally she considered
that, in the upbringing of a very small boy, that place should be
remote almost to invisibility.

With her death all this was altered. Abel Gallup was very lonely, and
turned to his little son for comfort. The child was biddable, loving,
and gentle, and "to please his dada" had ever been held before him as
his highest honour and duty.

Before he could read he could repeat long portions from the various
speeches his father particularly admired; he learned by heart easily
and had a retentive memory, and his father had only to say over a
sentence two or three times when the child was word perfect. It gave
Abel Gallup the most exquisite delight to stand his little son between
his knees and hear the stirring, sonorous sentences rolled out in the
high, child voice; and even in those early days he used to impress upon
Eloquent that when he was grown-up he "would have to speak different to
dada."

And little Eloquent, not realising that his father referred merely to
accent and general grammar, would puzzle for hours wondering how such
men as Mr Gladstone or John Bright would express their common wants.
In what lofty terms, for instance, would Mr Gladstone inform his aunt,
if he had an aunt, that his collar was frayed at the back and was
scratching his neck. This, Eloquent felt, was quite a likely
contingency, "seeing as he wore 'em so high." And how, he wondered,
would Mr John Bright intimate delicately to the authorities who ruled
his home that he hoped there would be pork for dinner on Sunday and
plenty of crackling. He felt certain that Mr Bright would be
sympathetic in the matter of crackling; he didn't know why, but he was
sure of it. Equally convinced was he that the great statesman would
express his desire in impressive and rhetorical language. He repeated
"bits" from the speeches that he knew, to see if he could fasten on a
chance phrase here and there that could be introduced into the common
conversations of life; but they never did fit, and he was fain to
expr