An obsequious waiter at his elbow hastened to refill the glass, and Conover, his eyes darting hither and thither among the guests to single out and dwell on the various faces he had so long and so vainly yearned to see in his house, absent-mindedly emptied it and another after it. He was talking assiduously to Mrs. Van Alstyne, whom at first he had found somewhat frigid and difficult; but who, he now discovered to his surprise, it was growing momentarily easier to entertain. He had had no idea of his own command of language.
Supper was still in its early stages when a fourth glass of heady vintage champagne followed the other three. From doorways and walls his political followers looked on with amaze. To them the sight of the Boss drinking was the eighth wonder of the world. They nudged each other and muttered awed comments out of the corners of their mouths.
But Caleb heeded this not at all. He was happy. Very happy. The party over which he had suffered such secret qualms and to secure the desired guests for which he had strained every atom of his vast political and business influence, was proving a marvellous success. At last he was in society. And he had thought the barriers of that Body so impassable! He was in society. At last. And talking with delightful, brilliant fluency with one of its acknowledged leaders. He had conquered.
The waiter filled his glass for the fifth time. After all, champagne had an effect whiskey could never equal. The fifth draught (for he allowed but one swallow to the goblet) seemed to inspire him even more than had its predecessors.
Then it was that fifty generations of Irishmen who, under the spell of liquor, acquired a flow of language not their own, clamored for voice in this their latest and greatest descendant. Now that he was in so foreign, brilliant a mood, what more apt than a graceful little speech of greeting to those his fellow-townsmen who had flocked thither to do him honor? The idea was sublime. Conover rose to his feet and rapped for silence. He would speak while the gift of eloquence was still strong upon him.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” began Caleb, clearing his voice and looking down the great room across the concourse of wondering, amused, or expectant faces that gently swayed in a faint haze before his eyes, “I guess you all know, without my telling you, how glad I am to see you here to-night, and I want you should enjoy every minute of your evening. Some of you are old friends of mine. There’s more’n a few here to-night that remembers me when I was barefooted Cale Conover, without a dollar to my name nor any very hectic prospects of getting one.
“But there’s a lot more of you here that I hadn’t the honor of knowing then, nor for that matter of meeting at all till to-night. It’s to these, mostly, that I’m talking now. For I want ’em to know me better and like me better. Maybe if they hear more about me they will. That’s why I’m on my feet now.
“I b’lieve it isn’t customary to make a speech any more at parties. But you’ll have to forgive me. I’m not much onto the latest frills and fashions. But give me a chance, and I’ll learn as easy as a Chinaman. It came to me all of a sudden to say what I’ve got to say, right here and now, even if it’s at the expense of a little etiquette. I’ve asked you here to-night, mainly, of course, for the pleasure of entertaining you, and I hope you’re all having a real good time. But I had another reason, too.”
The men at the tables looked perplexed. Was this the Caleb Conover they had met and cringed to in the outer world, this garrulous, rambling man with the flushed face?
“You see, I’ve come to be a kind of a feature of this city of ours and of the State, too. I’m here to stay. And I want that my towns-folks and my fellow-residents of the Mountain State should know me. Many of ’em do. There’s a full half-million folks in this city and State that know all about Caleb Conover. They know he’s on the square, that he’ll look after their interests, that he’s a white man. They know he’s a man they can trust in their public life and welcome in their homes. And, as I said, there’s a lot of these people here to-night.