Lee, that
you are responsible for this.
He never talks so to the Senate."
Nay, he even rose to a higher flight, and told the story of President
Lincoln's death-bed with a degree of feeling that brought tears into
their eyes. The other guests made no figure at all. The Speaker
consumed his solitary duck and his lonely champagne in a corner
without giving a sign.
Even Mr. Gore, who was not wont to hide his light under any kind
of extinguisher, made no attempt to claim the floor, and applauded
with enthusiasm the conversation of his opposite neighbour.
Ill-natured people might say that Mr. Gore saw in Senator Ratcliffe
a possible Secretary of State; be this as it may, he certainly said to
Mrs. Clinton, in an aside that was perfectly audible to every one at
the table: "How brilliant! what an original mind! what a sensation
he would make abroad!" And it was quite true, apart from the mere
momentary effect of dinner-table talk, that there was a certain
bigness about the man; a keen practical sagacity; a bold freedom
of self-assertion; a broad way of dealing with what he knew.
Carrington was the only person at table who looked on with a
perfectly cool head, and who criticised in a hostile spirit.
Carrington's impression of Ratcliffe was perhaps beginning to be
warped by a shade of jealousy, for he was in a peculiarly bad
temper this evening, and his irritation was not wholly concealed.
"If one only had any confidence in the man!" he muttered to
French, who sat by him.
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