She shivered slightly. Madness in the mother’s family.
“Wonderful faculty he has”—the Colossus seemed again to be thinking aloud—“of swaying audiences. Rather picked audiences, too. And as men are reckoned nowadays, hardly more than a boy.”
“He’s thirty-eight.”
“Almost an infant prodigy!” The deep laugh was very good to hear. “I never heard Gladstone. Before my day. But one or two of the fathers who go back to prehistoric times say that your young man is such another, but that the People’s John—proud title the People’s John—and only thirty-eight—has one shot in his game that the G. O. M. never had. It’s the master-shot, too, believe me. Humor. Cool-drawn humor. With that in your bag, you’ve always a chance of holing out under bogey. Don’t you agree?”
“Yes, I hope he has it,” said the cautious Helen. “But whether on the platform it quite ‘gets over,’ as they say in the theater, one is never quite sure. Whenever one hears him one is always dominated by his tremendous moral enthusiasm.”
“There’s your Gladstone. Always the card, of course. That’s why good judges think he may go a very long way.”
Helen’s heart took fire. These were big words in the mouth of the Colossus. “You think that?” She looked eagerly across at him. “Really and truly you think that?”
The immediate answer of the great man was slowly to produce a cigar case. “No use offering you a cigarette. I know you don’t smoke. Wise—very wise woman.” As he spoke he chose a cigar, cut off the end, lit it.
“Do you really think he’ll go far?” she persisted.
“The pundits seem pretty unanimous.”