out
and stop it. The debate being thus ended, the vote upon the reference
would follow--with victory for the Government. But into the Government's
calculations had not entered the possibility of a single-barrelled
speech which should occupy the entire time-limit of the setting, and
also get itself delivered in spite of all the noise. Goliath was
not expecting David. But David was there; and during twelve hours he
tranquilly pulled statistical, historical, and argumentative pebbles out
of his scrip and slung them at the giant; and when he was done he was
victor, and the day was saved.

In the English House an obstructionist has held the floor with
Bible-readings and other outside matters; but Dr. Lecher could not
have that restful and recuperative privilege--he must confine himself
strictly to the subject before the House. More than once, when the
President could not hear him because of the general tumult, he sent
persons to listen and report as to whether the orator was speaking to
the subject or not.

The subject was a peculiarly difficult one, and it would have troubled
any other deputy to stick to it three hours without exhausting his
ammunition, because it required a vast and intimate knowledge--detailed
and particularised knowledge--of the commercial, railroading, financial,
and international banking relations existing between two great
sovereignties, Hungary and the Empire. But Dr. Lecher is President
of the Board of Trade of his city of Brunn, and was master of the
situation. His speech was not formally prepared. He had a few notes
jotted down for his guidance; he had his facts in his head; his heard
was in his work; and for twelve hours he stood there, undisturbed by the
clamour around him, and with grace and ease and confidence poured
out the riches of his mind, in closely reasoned arguments, clothed in
eloquent and faultless phrasing.

He is a young man of thirty-seven. He is tall and well-proportioned, and
has cultivated and fortified his muscle by mountain-climbing. If he were
a little handsomer he would sufficiently reproduce for me the Chauncey
Depew of the great New England dinner nights of some years ago; he has
Depew's charm of manner and graces of language and delivery.

There was but one way for Dr. Lecher to hold the floor--he must stay
on his legs. If he should sit down to rest a moment, the floor would be
taken from him by the enemy in the Chair. When he had been talking three
or four hours h