The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1906-12-27
Courage, Weary Diner.
Tingley Has Invented a Quietus
for After-Dinner Speakers.

evening dress sat IN ghaStly alS1meut
along the sides Of the huge banquet
table. The debris of an elaborately
indigestible menu had been removed
from the cloth, and $50 stomaches
we're, so to speak, wringing their hands
over the problem in their midst.
Before each gentleman was his deml-
tasse and his thimble of liqueur. The
air was heavily aromatic with the in
cense of 100 cigars and the smell OF
80 cigarettes. There was a show OF
luxury everywhere; yet look OF dog
ged misery sat on every mien, and de-
spair was abroad in the very atmo-
sphere as at the feast of Belshazzar.
But there was no handwriting on the
wall to cause this detection. The ex-
plianation was simple. During the
procession of viands the Gates and en-
bottled sunshine, conversation had
flowed freely from uncorked souls,
Jokes had popped and laughter had
gurgled. But now the after dinner
speaker was getting in his deadly
work.
!, It is said that you can always tell
at a banquet who the speakers are 10
be by observing those who eat least,
drink most desperately and wear the
sorriest faces. But once the food has
vanished, it is the audience, not the
speakers, that wear the sorry faces.
This was not the first banquet Mr..
Oliver Tingley had attended, but 1t
was the first since his last solemn cath
that he would never go to another.
He always made such vow after
hours Of that abject dependency, that
living death, that state of tormented
coma, one endures while iannel-brain-
ed OATS squeak and gibber through
their after dinner speeches.
On this occasion Mr.. Tingley had
been unable to decline the Invitation.
He knew the dinner would be harmo-
iously composed and melodiously serV-
ed He promised himself that along
about tobacco-lighting time he would
fade away with the first smoke. But
it had been his ill-luck to be placed
next to one of the speakers. He gave
up hope Of escape.
He was in for martyrdom. He little
knew, as he sat there, that this ordeal
was to inspire him with an epoch
making idea. It is not necessity but
sorow that is the mother OF lnven-
ton. How little we know when we
suffer what will be the outcome OF our
grief! What is the pearl but the tear
drop of respondent clam?
The POSTMASTER had been chosen for
his political eminenee in congress
eminence that seems to unfit one hope
lessly for after-dinner speaking.
With an eloquence that was appall-
ingly out of place the toastmaster be-
gan to dilate on the grandeurs of Am
erican liberty, the westward progress
of the star of empire, the lowly prairie
schooner with is freight of glory, and
the magnifcence of our free school sys-
tenn.
It was all very important and more
or less true, but it did not contribute
te digestion. The toastmaster let the
eagle scream himself hoarse, then made
him scream some more. He pulled out
the tail feathers one by one, and it
was only when he had extracted the
last pin-feather that he consented to
Introduce the first speaker.
The Hon. Justice Sudbury had for
his subject the promising little trife,
international law in it's relation to
the origin and scope Of the Monroe
Doctrine
i The Justice gazed down on the guests
as if they were so many defendants In
a civil action. And he read to them
speech full of legal verbiage and POM
posity that had neither a scintilla OF
interest nor a prophecy of conclusion.
He might have been talking yet had
Iot one of the guests, who had man
aged to become cozily drunk, leaned
across the table and asked him in a
loud and bibulous tone:
"Is the old horse thief going to talk
all night?'
The Justice overheard, and came to
a halt. He realized that the offence
was beyond his jurisdiction and he
could not sentence the man to death.
He clutched at a few straws and lgno-
n1iniously sank into his seat. Every
one applauded-ostensibly the speaker,
actually the benefcent drunkard.
This apparently unimportant episode
started in Tingley's mind the first
workings of the idea that resulted IN
his era-establishing invention.
The toastmaster rose again, studied
his notes, and told a few stories, OF
whose hoary antiquity he alone seemed
to be ignorant. He drasged them
from their graves with the glee Of a
grinning ghoul. But as even the
effort and inclination to be humorous
are rare at banqUets, the audience &C
claimed him with gratitude. But he
introduced Senator Peavey, whose sub
ject was "Peace hath her victories no
less renown'd than war.-Milton."
He spent FIVE minutes saying that he