He stood gazing under the moon, like a gaunt statue of melancholy. Stanton
spoke to him but got no answer, and presently took his own road home. He
had no taste for histrionic scenes. And as he went his way he meditated.
Mad, beyond doubt. Not without power in him, but unbalanced, hysterical,
alternating between buffoonery and these schoolgirl emotions. He reflected
that if the American nation contained much stuff of this kind it might
prove a difficult team to drive. He was thankful that he was going home
next day to his orderly life.
II
Eighteen years have gone, and the lanky figure of Speed's store is revealed
in new surroundings. In a big square room two men sat beside a table
littered with the debris of pens, foolscap, and torn fragments of paper
which marked the end of a Council. It was an evening at the beginning of
April, and a fire burned in the big grate. One of the two sat at the table
with his elbows on the mahogany, and his head supported by a hand. He was a
man well on in middle life with a fine clean-cut face and the shapely
mobile lips of the publicist and orator.
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