Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/236

 MARK TWAIN

selves with food and drink in quantities nearly unbelievable but the Minority stayed loyally by their champion. Some distinguished deputies of the Majority stayed by him, too, compelled thereto by admiration of his great performance. When a man has been speaking eight hours, is it conceivable that he can still be interesting, still fascinating? When Dr. Lecher had been speaking eight hours he was still compactly surrounded by friends who would not leave him and by foes (of all parties) who could not ; and all hung enchanted and wondering upon his words, and all testified their admiration with con stant and cordial outbursts of applause. Surely this was a triumph without precedent in history.

During the twelve-hour effort friends brought to the orator three glasses of wine, four cups of coffee, and one glass of beer a most stingy reinforce ment of his wasting tissues, but the hostile Chair would permit no addition to it. But no matter, the Chair could not beat that man. He was a garrison holding a fort, and was not to be starved out.

When he had been speaking eight hours his pulse was seventy -two; when he had spoken twelve, it was one hundred.

He finished his long speech in these terms, as nearly as a permissibly free translation can convey them :

&quot;I will now hasten to close my examination of the subject. I conceive that we of the Left have made it clear to the honorable gentlemen of the other side of the House that we are stirred by no in temperate enthusiasm for this measure in its present shape. ., ,

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