It was warm, too, and grew warmer very fast, and he wondered why the rest did not take off their overcoats. Perhaps they would have done so if they had known Billy was going to address them.
He knew who was to open the debate on both sides, for that was always arranged beforehand, and his chance would come afterward.
He listened to them, and could not help thinking how much better they must feel when their speeches were all spoken. He knew very well what a troublesome thing a speech was to keep in, and without any cork.
Billy thought he had never known men to talk so long as they did—two young lawyers, three young doctors, the tutor of the village academy, the sub-editor of the Weekly Bugle, Squire Toms's son that was almost ready to go to college, and the tall young man with red hair who had just opened the new drug store.
That was the man who did Billy the most harm, for his argument was nothing in the wide world but a string of quotations from Daniel Webster. He called him the Great Expounder, and a great statesman, and a number of other names, and wound up by asserting that the opinion of such a great man as that settled the matter. There was a good deal of applause given to the red-headed young man as he was sitting down, and Billy took advantage of it; that is, before he knew exactly what he was doing, he was on his feet, and shouted, "Mr. President!—ladies and gentlemen—"
"Mr. Morton has the floor," remarked the president, very dignifiedly; and Billy, as he afterward said of himself, "was pinned."
There was no escape for him now, and when Grandfather Morton pounded with his cane, and shouted, "Platform!" dozens of other people took it up, and it was "Platform!" "Platform!" "Platform!" all over the hall. He knew what it meant. All the favorite speakers were sent forward in that way, and it was a great compliment; but Billy thought he must have walked forty miles, from the tired feeling in his legs, when he got there. Oh, how hot that room was just then, and what a dreadful thing it was to have a crowd like that suddenly begin to keep still! They must have been holding their breaths.
Billy knew his speech was in him, for it had been swelling and swelling while the others were speaking, but he could not quite get any of it very close to his mouth at that trying moment.
Stiller and stiller grew the hall, and Billy had a dim notion that it was beginning to turn around.
"Mr. President, ladies, and gentlemen—"