reached the edge of
the stage, waved his hand, and then there was silence.

"Friends," he said--"I call you such, though you have not received me in
a friendly manner--"

The crowd breathed hard, and some one uttered a threat, but another man
commanded silence. "Give him a chance!" he said.

"You have not received me in a friendly manner," resumed the Honorable
Herbert, "but I am your friend, and I am resolved that you shall be
mine. I cannot make a speech to you, but I will tell you a story which
perhaps will serve as well."

"Go on with the story," said the men, doubtfully. On the stage there was
a general waking-up. Correspondents and politicians alike recognized the
Honorable Herbert's new manner, and they bent forward with interest.

"My story," said Mr. Heathcote, "is of a man who had a fond and perhaps
too generous father. This father had suffered great hardships, and he
wished to save his son from them. What more natural? But perhaps, in his
tenderness, he did the son a wrong. So this son grew up, not seeing the
rough side of life, and finding all things easy. He lived in a part of
the country that is old and rich, where what is called necessity you
call luxury. He knew nothing of the world except that portion of it to
which he was used. What more natural? Is not that human nature
everywhere? He saw himself petted and admired, and in the course of time
he felt himself a person of importance. Is not that natural, too?"

He paused and looked over the audience, which was silent and attentive,
held by the interest of something unusual and the deep, almost painful,
earnestness of Mr. Heathcote's manner.

"What's he coming to?" whispered Hobart.

"I don't know; wait and see," replied Harley.

"Thus the man grew up to know only a little world," the Honorable
Herbert went on, "and he did not know how little it was. He was like a
prisoner in a gorgeous room, who sees, without, snow and storm that
cannot touch him, but who is a prisoner nevertheless. Those whom he met
and with whom he lived his daily life were like him, and they thought
they were the heart of this world. Everything about them was golden;
they saw that people wished to hear of them, to read of them, to know
all that they did, and their view of their importance grew every day.
What more natural? Was not that human nature?"

"I think I see which way he is going," whispered Hobart.

Harley nodded. The audience was still and intent, hanging on the