Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/547

Rh scene before him. He must have heard every word of Tiernan's speech, but he smiled down in superior fashion at the crowd that swept toward him so tumultuously. A few hisses were mingled with the applause that greeted him, but there were many in the throng who evidently felt that Tiernan had gone too far and were desirous of maintaining Ossian's reputation for impartial hospitality. But friends and foes united in a trampling chorus of "Speech! Speech! We want a speech!"

The British Ambassador drew a monocle from his waistcoat pocket, adjusted it leisurely, hemmed two or three times, and then, in an odd, falsetto voice that sharpened every word and sent it uncomfortably home, delivered himself of a most singular speech indeed. It was an explanation, he declared, of the misapprehensions under which his young friend who had just addressed this audience was evidently laboring, and he proceeded to tell what he had really meant to say at that historic dinner the week before. But his explanation made matters infinitely worse; at every turn he let slip phrases that betrayed his contempt for the United States; it would have been absurd, if it had not been so outrageous, to listen to those supercilious sentences, delivered in a style that out-heroded even the check-suited Englishman of the variety stage. At first the crowd had been decorous enough, but from moment to moment it was obviously escaping from the control of the sober-minded, and soon it became openly derisive. The Ambassador now seemed to lose his temper likewise, and his maladroit compliments turned into thinly disguised vituperation. His audience became a surging mob. In vain did Lord Rawlins wave his angular arms, or strike attitudes of defiant, monocled patience.

When Patsy Tiernan yelled "Down with him!" the spark touched the powder. A dozen hot-heads actually rushed the steps and laid hands upon Her Majesty's accredited representative.

Then came the worst of all. "The rail! The rail! Where's the Lincoln rail?" shouted Tiernan, as if beside himself with fury. Forth from its resting-place in one of the dormitories was dragged that precious relic of the 1860 Presidential campaign: a fence-rail reputed to have been split by the hands of the martyr President.

"Put him on a sealskin!" yelled some one.

"Oh, ride him on a sealskin, sure enough!"

As if by magic a skin rug, snatched from somebody's floor, was tossed over the sharp corners of the rail. Twenty reckless satellites of Patsy Tiernan lifted the Ambassador from his feet. He made the best of an unspeakably bad matter, shrugged his aristocratic shoulders, and flung his leg over the rail. It was hoisted to the shoulders of the maddened young patriots, and three times did the frantic procession circle the huge bonfire, amid the rapturous cheers of half the university and the silent apprehensions or awe-stricken exclamations of the other half. Then it vanished toward Tommy's house, just as the university proctor had fought his way to within a hand's grasp of the rail.

At this instant one of the very knowing freshmen nudged a classmate and whispered, "Ain't you on to it, Atkins? I am. Those upper-classmen are trying to play horse with us. That ain't Lord Rawlins at all. That's Andrews, Ninety-Blank!"

On the other side of the bonfire, at the same moment, an idea suggested itself to a sallow youth with glasses. He edged away circumspectly, and then dashed off to the telegraph office.

"This will be hot stuff for 'The Enterprise, he murmured, and he glanced over his shoulder as he ran, to make sure that "The Unspeakable's" correspondent had not taken a hint from his own departure. It was 9.20. The Ossian office closed at 9.30 unless there were despatches waiting to be sent; and the heart of "The Enterprise" correspondent was tuneful as he discovered that there was nobody ahead of him and that the operator was still at his desk.

He scribbled the first sheet of his story, and pushed it under the wire screen to- ward the operator.

"Here, Fred," said he, "I want you to rush this. I'll have some more ready in a minute, and to-night I'll try to keep ahead of you." He laughed gleefully at the thought of his beat.

But the operator shook his head, without so much as glancing at him. "You'll have to wait," he remarked. "Mr. Andrews has the wire just now;" and he clicked away with irritating composure. A five-dollar bill reposing just then in his trousers pocket may have aided his philosophy. He was telegraphing page after page of the University Catalogue, in order