The new enterprise. (Madison, Fla.) 1901-1908, 1907-01-24

q
along the sides of the huge banquet
table The debris OF an elaDoraleis
indigestible menu had been removed
from the cloth, and $50 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 liqueur The
cir 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 oil dog
ged misery sat on every mien, ana ue-
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 mad
flowed freely from uncorked souls
Jokes had popped and laughter mad
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 cat leasI
drink most desperately and wear the
sorriest faces. But once the 1000 mas
vanished, it is the audience, not the
speakers, that wear the sorry faces
This was not the hrst banquet Mr.
Oliver Tingley had attended. but II
was the first since his last solemn oath
that he would never go to another
He always made such VOW after
hours Of that abject dependency, that
living death, that state of tormentcu
coma, one endules while flannel-brdin-
ed Qafo squeak and gibber through
their alter dinner speecues,
Or this occasion Mr., Tingley had
been unable TO decline the invitation.
He knew the dinner would be harmo-
iously composed and melodcusly serv-
ed. He promised himself that along
about tobacco-lighting time he would
fade away with the first smoke, But
1t 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 will he the outcome Of our
grief! What is the pearl but the tear
drop OF respondent clam?
The toastmastor had been chosen for
his political eminence in CONGRESSMAN
eminence that seems TO unfit one hope
lessly for after-dinner speaking.
With an eloquence that was appall-
ingly out of place the POSTMASTER be-
gan to dilate on the grandeurs Of Am.
erican liberty, the westward prosr ess
of the star of empire, the lowly prairie
schooner with is freight of glory, and
the magnficence of our free school sys-
TEN.
1t was all very important and more
or less true, but it did not contribute
tC, digestion. The POSTMASTER let the
eagle scream himself hoarse, then made
him scream some more. He pulled out
the tail feathers one by one, and II
was only when he had extracted the
lest pin-feather that he consented TO
introduce the first speaker.
The Hon. Justice Sudbury had for
his subject the promising little trihe
international law in its relation 10
the origin and scope OF the Monroe
Doctrine"
The Justice gazed down on the guests
as if they were so many defendants in
a civil action. And he read to them q
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
not one of the guests, who had man
Naged to become cozily drunk, leaned
across the table and asked him in q
loud ana, bibulous tone:
4. rs the Old horse thief going to talk
all nights"
The Justice overheard, and came 10
a halt He realized that the offence
was beyond his jurisdiction and he
could not sentence the man 10 death.
He clutched at a few straws and igno-
miniously sank into his seatA Every
one Enthusiastically the spNaker,
actually the benefcent drunRard.
This apparently unimportant episode
started in Tingleys mind the hrst
workings of the idea that resulted In
his era-establishing invention.