The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-07-28
| CHANCE FOR CLARENCE.
OPENING ron Il YOUNG MAN WITH
THE POLITICAL GERM.

Ihe Meeting of fhe Society for silent
Thought offered Just the Opportuni-
| ~ Needed 10 b. GIN a Career of Ora
tory--The silent Thinkers Evidently
Enjoyed It--A Mystery.
Clarence is all right ii some ways,
but he's got the political germ. That's
| WHAT'S the matter with Clarence. The
last time he was in the hospital they
| must have inoculated him with the De-
mosthenes virus. Now he thinks he's
the original font of eloquence and he's
shaping up for the coming campaign.
He's got the orations of Patrick Henry
bound in morocco and the eloquence of
William J. Bryan bound in calf and the
poems of Edward Atkinson bound in
yellow dog. He sits in the corned and
studies them when he ought to be max
ing an honest living and when the
shades of night are falling fast he gets
up in his hall bed room and plays he's
the original human megaphone. What
he yearns to do is to go on the stump
for Bryan this fall. He's putting in his
time nowadays hunting the stump.
The Topfloor Debating club gave
him the chance of his life the other
day. He'd been spouting around there
till most of us were threatened with
this fancy new ear disease and we APP
pointed a committee to devise ways
and means of showing a spike in Clar-
ence's cogs. Why didn't we expel him?
Oh, we didn't want to do that Clar-
ence is all right If he didn't have that
hot air habit so bad. Bill Pratt calls
him the balloonatic. 1t was Bill that
put up the game. Bill goes down to
Fourteenth street every now and then
and pulls a salary out for looking
pleasant Right next to the office
where he'd work if his father wasn't
head of the firm, so that he gets the
same salary without the trouble, there's
a sort of one set assembly room. All
kinds of societies that have got the
price to pay In advance do down there
and reform things. Last week there
was a scrap for the room between the
Society for the Suppression of Insect
Life In Our Midst and the United Greek
Peders Five Dollars-a- Week Police
Benefit organization. That's just to
show you what kind of belfry bats fit
around that locality. When the Insects
and the Greeks got through with each
other the assembly room was suffering
with abrasions and severe internal in
juries. The agent for the joint turned
them all out and let his place for three
days to the Society of Silent Thought.
Bill Pratt took a look in at their first
meeting and came out with smile OH
his face like long drink on hot day.
He saw that outfit was just made to
order for Clarence.
You might think that Bill would
have put the rest Of us on at the start.
That isn't Bill. BIZ has an anise-seed
bag smothered to death when it comes
TO foxness This was his game and he
did the Silent Thought act as if he was
member of the gang. All we had to
know was that Clarence had been invi-
ted to deliver an address before the So
ciety of Silent Thought and that three
or four of us were to go along to see
that he got fair shake from the refe-
rec and nobody rubbed oil of mustard
on his legs. There wasn't much time
for preparation, but that didn't change |
the odds on Clarence. We all knew
that he had his winters supply of orato-
ny stored away from wind and rain.
Know it? Why we hadn't had a |
chance to forget 1t for ten weeks
"I'll give 'em the Influence of None |
tary Fluctuations on the Rights of the |
Common People, said Clarence.
Maybe he didn't have the hot de-
bate with the club looking glass that |
evening. The rest of us stood around |
and gave him an occasional hand on |
his good work but 1t was wild night |
upon the sea pilot. Clarence is one OF
those windmill orators. When he gets
fairly buzzing the tir is fuller of arms
and legs than a trussmaker's show |
window. He took two hours to that re-
hearsal and when we dragged him off |
for fear of laryngitis the mercury was
peelng off the back of the looking
glass The next night we boxed him
up in a frock coat and escorted him to
the Silent Thought meeting.
:" Now Clarence, my boy said Bill
Pratt, these people are a little on the
freak, but they're all right at that.
Their stunt is to sit very still and think
very hard. That's the way they absorb
IDEAS. Don't be discouraged if they
don't give you the glad hand, They'll
appreciate you all right
"Then he led Clarence in and turned
him loose on the Silent Thinkers.
There asn't any silence doing around
there for the next five minutes. Car
ence opened up with a few of his mega
phone whoops and then he began to do
Say, you never saw any
body more pleased than that bunch OF
queer ones was. They were just tickled
pink. What seemed to suit them best |
Of all was Clarence's ground and lofty
gestures. He'd wave and 1
Naggle and twiddle his fingers, and
pretty quick they began to get awake
md respond For a man that's always
,aet, reasnoa bly SIRE IF getting home |