The grinding classmates who had secured the mark of A in Geometry and
Rhetoric were not in the running on Commencement Day.
Our Hero got his Diploma on a Fluke, but when he appeared on the
Rostrum between an Oleander and the Members of the Board, with Goose-
Goose on the Aureole, the new Store Suit garnished with a leaf of
Geranium and a yellow Rose-Bud, and the Gates Ajar Collar lashed fast
with his future Trade-Mark: viz., a White Bow Tie—he had all the
Book Worms crushed under his Heel.
He pulled out the stop marked "Vox Humana" and begged his Hearers to lift the sword of Justice and with it smite the Deluge of Organized Wealth which was crouched and ready to spring upon the Common People. In pleading the cause of Labor, he spoke as an expert, for once he had strung a Clothes-Line for his Mother.
He got the biggest Hand of any one at the Exercises. After denouncing the predaceous Interests he relapsed into an attitude of Meditation, with the Chin on the starched Front, very much like a Steel Engraving of Daniel Webster.
The enthralled Townsmen, seeing him thus, with the Right Hand buried in the Sack Suit and the raven Mop projecting in the rear, allowed that there was nothing to it. He was a Genius and billed through for the Legislature.
Some Boys have to go to College to get a Shellac Finish, but Sylvester already had the Dark Clothes and the Corrugated Brow and a voice like a Tuba, so, to complete his Equipment, he merely had to sit tilted back in a Law Office for a few months and then borrow Money to get a Hat such as John A. Logan used to wear.
All who saw him move from Group to Group along the Hitch Rack on Saturday afternoon, shaking hands with the Rustics and applying the Ointment, remarked that Ves was a young man of Rare Promise and could not be held back from the Pay-Roll for any considerable length of Time. He was one of the original 787 Boy Orators of the Timothy Hay Section of the Imperial Middle West.
At every hotel Banquet, whether by the Alumni of the Shorthand College or under the auspices of the Piano Movers' Pleasure Club, he was right up at the Head Table with his Hair rumpled, ready to exchange a Monologue for a few warm Oysters and a cut of withered Chicken.
On Memorial Day it was Sylvester who choked up while laying his
Benediction on the Cumrads of the G. A. R..
On Labor Day he unbuttoned his Vest all the way down, held a trembling
Fist clear above the leonine Mat, and demanded a living Wage for every
Toiler.