He turned to his supporters on the platform and made a gesture in the direction of the audience.
"These are the men," he sneered, "who fattened on the late war—men who boasted of what they would have done had they been thirty years younger! Look at their courage now! My God! . . ."
He said very little more in this strain, but what he did say was to the point. It shamed those seventy-nine resentful and spiteful old men into the most abject silence I have ever seen. They cringed and wilted before the tornado of his passion, until at last one of them stood up and apologized for himself and the rest of the company.
"That's quite all right! . . ." murmured Gran'pa, diffidently. "I think we all lost our heads for a moment. Please forgive me if I broke the bad news too suddenly."
How could they help cheering him after that?
More noise! Then quietness, as Gran'pa counted out the beans.
"With your permission, gentlemen," he said tactfully, "I am retaining the first white one for my fiancée."
(A voice: "Yes! Yes!"—followed by unanimous approval!)
"That," he continued, "leaves twenty-one. . . . Now for the red ones."
After a momentary and dramatic silence, Gran'pa said:—