papers, fearing the office might be closed when the meeting adjourned: DOVER, 18: A tremendous mass meeting was held here to-night. The utmost enthusiasm was displayed by the crowd. Effective speeches were made by several prominent gentlemen, among them the eloquent young orator Mr. Max Adeler, whose spirited remarks, interspersed with sparkling anecdote, provoked uproarious applause. Dover is good for five hundred majority, and perhaps a thousand." At eight o'clock a very large crowd really did assemble in front of the porch of one of the hotels. The speakers were placed upon the balcony, which was but a few feet above the pavement, and there was also a number of persons connected with the various political clubs of the town. I felt some what nervous; but I was tolerably certain I could speak my pięce acceptably, even with the poetry torn out of the introduction and the number two story sacrificed. I took a seat upon the porch and waited while the band played a spirited air or two. It grieved me to perceive that the band stood directly in front of us upon the pavement, the coldeyed drummer occupying a favorable position for staring at me. The chairman began with a short speech in which he went over almost precisely the ground covered by my introduction; and as that portion of my oration was already reduced to a fragment by the use of the verses, I quietly resolved to begin, when my turn came, with point number two. The chairman introduced to the crowd Mr. Keyser, who was received with cheers. He was a ready speaker, and he began, to my deep regret, by telling in capital style my story number three, after which he used up some of my number six arguments, and concluded with the remark that it was not his purpose to occupy the attention of the meeting for any length of time, because the executive committee in Wil mington had sent an eloquent orator who was now upon the platform and would present the cause of the party in a manner which he could not hope to approach. Mr. Keyser then sat down, and Mr. Schwartz was introduced. Mr. Schwartz observed that it was hardly worth while for him to attempt to make anything like a speech, because the gentleman from New Castle had come down on purpose to discuss the issues of the campaign, and the audience, of course, was anxious to hear him. Mr. Schwartz would only tell a little story which seemed to illustrate a point he wished to make, and he thereupon related my anecdote number seven, making it appear that he was the bosom friend of Commodore Scudder and an acquaintance of the man who made the gun. The point illustrated I was shock ed to find was almost precisely that which I had attached to my story number seven. The situation began to have a serious appearance. Here, at one fell swoop, two of my best stories and three of my sets of arguments were swept off into utter uselessness. When Schwartz withdrew, a man named Krumbauer was brought forward. Krumbauer was a German, and the chairman announced that he would speak in that language for the benefit of those persons in the audience to whom the tongue was pleasantly familiar. Krumbauer went ahead, and the crowd received his remarks with roars of laughter. After one particularly exuberant outburst of merriment, I asked the man who sat next to me, and who seemed deeply interested in the story, "What was that little joke of Krumbauer's? It must have been first rate." "So it was, he said. "It was about a Dutchman up in Berks county, Penn'a., who got mixed up in his dates." 'What dates?" I gasped, in awful apprehension. 66 'Why, his Fourths of July, you know. Got seven or eight years in arrears and tried to make them all up at once. Good, wasn't it?" "Good? I should think so; ha! ha! My very best story, as I'm a sinner!" It was awfully bad. I could have strangled Krumbauer and then chopped him into bits. The ground seemed slipping away beneath me; there was the merest skeleton of a speech left. But I determined to take that and do my best, trusting to luck for a happy result. But my turn had not yet come. Mr. Wilson was dragged out next, and I thought I perceived a demoniac_smile steal over the countenance of the cymbal player as Wilson said he was too hoarse to say much; he would leave the heavy work for the brilliant young orator who was here from New Castle. He would skim rapidly over the ground and then retire. He did. Wilson rapidly skimmed all the cream off my arguments numbers two, five, and six, and wound up by offering the whole of my number four argument. My hair fairly stood on end when Wilson bowed and left the stand. What on earth was I to do now? Not an argument left to stand upon; all my anecdotes gone but two, and my mind in such a condition of frenzied bewilderment that it seemed as if there was not another available argument or suggestion or hint or anecdote remaining in the entire universe. In an agony of despair, I turned to the man next to me and asked him if I would have to follow Wilson. He said it was his turn now. "And what are you going to say?" I demanded, suspiciously. "Oh, nothing," he replied-" nothing at all. I want to leave room for you. I'll just tell a little story or so, to amuse them, and then sit down." "What story, for instance?" I asked. "Oh, nothing, nothing; only a little yarn I happened to remember about a farmer who married a woman who said she could cut four cords of wood, when she couldn't." My worst fears were realized. I turned to the man next to me, and said, with suppressed emotion, "May I ask your name, my friend?" 66 He said his name was Gumbs. May I inquire what your Christian name is?" He said it was William Henry. Well, William Henry Gumbs," I exclaimed, “gaze at me! Do I look like a man who would slay a human being in cold blood?" "Hm-m-m, n-no; you don't," he replied, with an air of critical consideration. "But I AM!" said I, fiercely-"I AM; and I tell you now that if you undertake to relate that anecdote about the farmer's wife I will blow you into eternity without a moment's warning; I will, by George!" "Mr. Gumbs instantly jumped up, placed his hand on the railing of the porch, and got over suddenly into the crowd. He stood there pointing me out to the bystanders, and doubtless advancing the theory that I was an original kind of a lunatic, who might be expected to have at any moment a fit which would be interesting when studied from a distance. The chairman looked around, intending to call upon my friend Mr. Gumbs; but not perceiving him, he came to me and said: "Now is your chance, sir; splendid opportunity; crowd worked up to just the proper pitch. We have paved the way for you; go in and do your best." "Oh yes; but hold on for a few moments, will you? I can't speak now; the fact is I am not quite ready. Run out some other man.' "Haven't got another man. Kept you for the last purposely, and the crowd is waiting. Come ahead and pitch in, and give it to 'em hot and heavy." It was very easy for him to say "give it to them," but I had nothing to give. Beautifully they paved the way for me! Nicely they had worked up the crowd to the proper pitch! Here I was in a condition of frantic despair, with a crowd of one thousand people expecting a brilliant oration from me who had not a thing in my mind but a beggarly story about a fire-extinguisher and a worse one about a farmer's wife. I groaned in spirit and wished I had been born far away in some distant clime among savages who knew not of mass meetings, and whose language contained such a small number of words that speech-making was impossible. But the chairman was determined. He seized me by the arm and fairly dragged me to the front. He introduced me to the crowd in flattering, and I may say outrageously ridiculous terms, and then whispering in my ear, "Hit 'em hard, old fellow, hit 'em hard," he sat down. The crowd received me with three hearty cheers. As I heard them I began to feel dizzy. The audience seemed to swim around and to increase tenfold in size. By a resolute effort I recovered my self-possession partially, and determined to begin. I could not think of anything but the two stories, and I resolved to tell them as well as I could. I said: "Fellow-citizens: It is so late now that I will not attempt to make a speech to you." [Cries of "Yes!" "Go ahead!" "Never mind the time!" etc., etc.] Elevating my voice, I repeated: “I say it is so late now that I can't make a speech as I intended on account of its being so late that the speech which I intended to make would keep you here too late if I made it as I intended to. So I will tell you a story about a man who bought a patent fire-extinguisher which was warranted to split four cords of wood a day; so he set fire to his house to try her, and No, it was his wife who was warranted to split four cords of wood-I got it wrong; and when the flames obtained full headway, he found she could only split two cords and a half, and it made him- What I mean is that the farmer, when he bought the exting-courted her, that is, she said she could set fire to the house, and when he tried her, she collapsed the first time-the extinguisher did, and he wanted a divorce because his house-Oh, hang it, fellow-citizens, you understand that this man, or farmer, rather, bought a--I should say courted a—that is, a fire-ex-” (Desperately.) "Fellow-citizens! IF ANY MAN SHOOTS THE AMERICAN FLAG, PULL HIM DOWN UPON THE SPOT; BUT AS FOR ME, GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!" As I shouted this out at the top of my voice, in an ecstasy of confusion, a wild, tumultuous yell of laughter came up from the crowd. I paused for a second beneath the spell of that cold eye in the band, and then, dashing through the throng at the back of the porch, I rushed down the street to the depot, with the shouts of the crowd and the uproarious music of the band ringing in my ears. I got upon a freight train, gave the engineer five dollars to take me along on the locomotive, and spent the night riding to New Castle. THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON.-GEORGE W. BUNGAY. (CENTENARY LINES.) The circling century has brought One hundred years ago! We crown the day with radiant green, At break of day again we hear And shots that shake the throne "Load well with powder and with ball, But fire not till the foe shall call Militia and brave minute-men But through the gray smoke and the flame, From war's red winding-sheet! Hancock and Adams glory won, With yeomen whose best work was done When first they struck the blow. |