The Lee County journal. (Leesburg, Ga.) 1904-19??, 1906-12-28

table. The debris Of an deliberately
indigestible menu had been removed
from the cloth, and 1850 stomaches
were, so to speak, wringing their hands
over the problem in their midst
Before each gentleman was his demi-
tasse and his thimble Of liquenr. The
air was heavily aromatic with the IN
cense OF 100 cigars and the smell OF
80 cigarettes There was show Oh
luxury everywhere; yet look Of dog
ged misery sat on every mien, and de-
SPAR was abroad in the very atmo-
sphere as at the feast Of a 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
eurgled. But now the after dinner
speaker was getting in his deadly
work.
1t is said that you can always tell
at a banquet who the speakers are to
be by observing those who eat least,
drink most desperately and wear the
solriest faces. But once the food has
vanished, it is the audience, not the
speakers, that wear the sorry faces.
This was not the nrst banquet Mr.
oliver Tingley had attended, but Il
was the first since his last solemn cath
that he would never go TO another
He always made such a vow after
hours Of that ahject dependency, that
living death, that state Of tormented
coma, one endUres while flannel-brdin-
ed OATS squeak and gibber through
their after dinner speeches.
ON this occasion Mr.. Tingley haa
been unable to decline the invitation.
re knew the dinner would be hafmo-
iously composed and melodiously sery-
ed lie promised himself that along
about tobacco-lighting time he would
fade away with the first smoke But
Il 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. 1t is not necessity but
sorrow that is the mother OF inVen-
ton. How little we know when we
suffer what win be the outcome Of our
grief What is the pearl but the tear
drop OF q Respondent clam?
The .castmaster had been chosen for
his political eminence in congress-an
eminence that seems to unfit one hope
lessly for after-diuner speaking.
With an eloquence that was appaN
ingly out Of place the toastmaster be-
gan to dllate 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
II was an very important and more
on less true, but it did not contribute
t. 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 tride
international law in its relation to
the origin and scope of the Monroe
Doctrine
The Justice gazed down on the guests
as if they were so many defendants in
civil action And he read to them a
speech full OF legal verbiage and POM
pOsity that had neither scintilla of
interest nor a prophecy of conclusion,
Die might have been talking yet had
rot 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:
lis the old horse thief going to talk
all night?'
The Justice overheard, and came to
q 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 igno-
Miniously 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 eFa-establishing invention.