"Boys and girls, do be still!" called Bob. "I can't talk to a Roman mob like you, unless you're quiet. I'm scared to death as it is. I never made a speech before, and maybe I'm not going to make one now!
"I've been to political meetings before. I'm Irish, so that goes without saying. My father used to say that if I'd been a man I'd have been a policeman. Ye know they call me Bob, son av Battle."
"I bet you would, too. I'd vote for ye! Maybe you suffragettes will make it yet," the crowd interrupted her.
"Are you making this speech or am I?" she called to them.
"Shut up! Let her alone! Tell us what kind of a guy Trent is!" they called.
"What I started to say, when I was so rudely interrupted, was this: I'm more interested in this political meeting than any I ever went to, because I'm more interested in the candidate for governor, and I want every man in this audience to vote for Paul Trent to-morrow on my say so."
They expressed themselves on that point in the usual vocal way. Bob reached for the chairman's gavel, with a "Give me that thing!" which made them all laugh. She beat the desk until there was silence.
"I think a man who is courteous, high minded, unselfish, and dependable in his relations with women is the kind of man to be dependable in his political relations. When Paul Trent says a thing is so, you can bank on its being so. If you send him to Albany to run this state, he'll run it. The politicians can't boss him, you can't boss him, and I can't boss him—(laughter)—but he'll do his conscientious best to run it right. You send him up there and see!"
She smiled and nodded at them as she turned to take her seat; the crowd's sudden shout of welcome made her turn quickly. Paul was coming toward her. The look in his eyes held her so that she forgot the crowd, which was going into convulsions out in front.
"My dear!" Paul said to her softly, taking her hand. She smiled up at him, turned back to the crowd in front, and with her hand still in his silenced them with a gesture. They scented a situation.