"But what d'you want him to be eloquent for?" Mrs Gallup enquired almost tearfully. "What good will it do him—precious lamb?"
"There's others to be thought of as well as 'im," Mr Gallup remarked, mysteriously.
"Who? More children?" asked Mrs Gallup. "I don't see as he'd need to be eloquent just to mind his little brother or sister."
"Ellen Gallup, you listen to me. That babe lying there on your knee with a red face all puckered up is going to sway the multitude." Mrs Gallup gasped, and clutched her baby closer. "He's going to be one of those whose voice shall ring clarion-like"—here Mr Gallup unconsciously raised his own, and the baby stirred uneasily—"over"—he paused for a simile—he had been going to say "land and sea," but it didn't finish the sentence to his liking, "far and wide," he concluded, rather lamely.
Mrs Gallup made no remark, so he continued: "Eloquent Gallup shall be a politician. Some day he'll stand for parlyment, and he'll get in, and when he's there he'll speak up and he'll speak out for the rights of his fellow men, and he'll proclaim their wrongs."
And there and then, as if in vindication of his father's belief in him, the baby began to roar so lustily that further converse was impossible.
A week later, the baby was baptized Eloquent Abel Gallup. Abel was a concession to his mother's qualms. It was his father's name, and by her it was looked upon as a loophole of escape for her son, should Eloquent prove a misnomer.
"After all," she reflected, "if the poor chap shouldn't have the gift of the gab, Abel's a good everyday workin' name, and he can drop the E if it suits 'im. 'Tain't always them as has most to say does most, that's certain; and why his father's so set on him being one of those chaps forever standing on platforms and haranguing passes me. I never see no good come of an election yet, an' I've seen plenty of harm: what with drinkin' and quarrellin', and standin' for hours at street corners argifying. Politics is all very well in their place, but let it be a small place, says I, and let 'em keep there."
Abel Gallup was fifty years old and his wife over forty when they married; staid, home-loving people both. Abel's business was that of "a General Outfitter," and "The Golden Anchor" that was hung over the entrance to the shop presided over the fortunes of a sound, going concern. Only ready-made clothes were sold, only ready money was accepted. They were well-to-do, and living simply above their shop in the main street of Marlehouse were able to save largely.
Abel Gallup, however, was not merely a keen man of business and successful tradesman. He was, in addition, an idealist and a dreamer of dreams; but so shrewd and level-headed was he, that he kept the two things quite apart. His business was never neglected, and he returned to it all the fresher, inasmuch as in his off times his mind was ardently concerned with other things.