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But when the chairman had stilled the tumult and made his grim comment, “There appear to be enough delegates left to transact business,” the old partisan cast his eyes down to the floor with a chuckle. “I can’t see the hole they made, it’s so small. Say, ain’t he a magnificent chairman; you can hear every word he says!”

“Bully chairman,” said a cheerful “rooter” in the rear, who had enjoyed the episode more than words can say, and had cheered the passing of Silver with such choice quotations from popular songs as ” Good-by, my lover, good-by,” and ” Just mention that you saw me,” and plainly felt that he, too, had adorned the moment. “I nearly missed coming this morning, and I wouldn’t have missed it for a tenner; they’re going to nominate now.”

The old man caught his breath; then he smiled. “I’ll help you shout pretty soon,” said he, while he sat down very carefully.

The “rooter,” a good-looking young fellow with a Reed button and three or four gaudy badges decking his crash coat, nodded and tapped his temple furtively, still retaining his expression of radiant good-nature. The Canton man nodded and frowned.

I felt that the Canton man need not be afraid. Somehow we were all tacitly taking care that this poor, bewildered soul should not have its little dream of loyal, unselfish satisfaction dispelled.

“Ah, my countrymen,” I thought, “you do a hundred crazy things, you crush les convenances under foot, you can be fooled by frantic visionaries, but how I love you!”

It was Baldwin of Iowa that made the first speech. He was one of the very few men–I had almost said of the two men–that we in the galleries had the pleasure of hearing; and we could hear every word.

He began with a glowing tribute to Blaine. At the first sentence our old man flung his gray head in the air with the gesture of the war horse when he catches the first, far-off scream of the trumpet. He leaned forward, his features twitching, his eyes burning; the fan dropped out of his limp hand; his fingers, rapping his palm, clenched and loosened themselves unconsciously in an overpowering agitation. His face was white as marble, with ominous blue shadows: but every muscle was astrain; his chest expanded; his shoulders drew back; his mouth was as strong and firm as a young man. For a second we could see what he had been at his prime.

Then the orator’s climax came, and the name–the magic name that was its own campaign cry in itself.

The old partisan leaped to his feet; he waved his hands above his head; wild, strange, in his white flame of excitement. He shouted; and we all shouted with him, the McKinley man and the Reed man vieing with each other (I here offer my testimony as to the scope and quality of that young Reed man’s voice), and the air rang about us: “Blaine! Blaine! James G. Blaine!” He shrieked the name again and again, goading into life the waning applause. Then in an instant his will snapped under the strain; his gray beard tilted in the air; his gray head went back on his neck.

The Canton man and I caught him in time to ease the fall. We were helped to pull him into the aisle. There were four of us by this time, his granddaughter and the Reed “rooter,” besides the Canton man and myself.

We carried him into the wide passageway that led to the seats. The Reed young man ran for water, and, finding none, quickly returned with a glass of lemonade (he was a young fellow ready in shifts), and with it we bathed the old man’s face.

Presently he came back, by degrees, to the world; he was not conscious, but we could see that he was not going to die.