ess his small wants in the plain language of the folk about him.

Another name floated vague and nebulous among the impressions of very
early childhood: that of one Herbert Spencer; and this was curious, for
Abel Gallup was what he would himself have described as "a sincere
Believer." Nevertheless, he was immensely attracted by the
philosopher's _Study of Sociology_, and little Eloquent was made to
learn and repeat many long bits from that dispassionate work. There
was no portrait of Mr Herbert Spencer hanging upon the walls; he was
not a living force, a real presence, like Mr Gladstone or Mr Bright; he
spake not with the words of "a great soul greatly stirred"; yet there
was something in his polished and logical sentences that gave Eloquent
a doubtless quite erroneous sense of his personality, and of a certain
aloofness in his attitude. He never called into council the "bits"
from Mr Herbert Spencer in order to find majestic language in which to
express the ordinary wants of life.

Eloquent was taken to his first political meeting when he was six years
old, and he fell asleep before he had been there half an hour. His
father put his arm round the child, rested the heavy little head
against his shoulder and let him sleep in peace. Not even the cheering
woke him, and his father carried him home, still sleeping. Perhaps
Abel believed that in some mysterious manner the child absorbed the
opinions of the speakers through the pores. He was not in the least
annoyed with the little boy for falling asleep, nor did his tender
years prevent a repetition of the experiment a few months later. This
time Eloquent kept awake for nearly an hour. He was dreadfully bored,
but at the same time felt very elated and important. He was the only
little boy in the hall.

Abel Gallup was never tired of impressing upon Eloquent that "the
people had the power, and the people had the votes to send you to
parlyment or keep you out. Don't you be misled, my boy, by them as
would wish you to try to please the gentry by and bye. The gentry's
few and the people's many. I don't say a word against the gentry,
mind, they're all right in their proper place, and very pleasant they
be, some of them, but when the time comes for you to stand, just you
remember that even hereabout there's hundreds of little houses for one
manshun, and in every one of those little houses there's a vote, and
you can have it if you go the right way about. When you're