Jesse Lynch Williams

“ Then, reaching over as if to take hold of the audience with his long hands, he confided to them the damning reason: "He's not in this for his health, my friends. Do you know what's the matter with him? Listen! he's ambitious; ambitions! I tell you, ambitious!" Nell thought a man would not be worth much without ambition, so she didn't feel very badly over that.
But from this point on Holmes began by innuendo and implication to defame his rival to some purpose. Practically he accused Davidge of doing with his money what the reformer accused the machine of doing with their unlimited resources. ”

“ Holmes was a good orator, with a self-confident manner and the gift of ridicule. His line of attack was all very old to Davidge, but it was new to Nell. The audience seemed to like it.
Holmes accused his young rival of having "the enthusiasm of youth!" Tom saw Nell smiling at this. Then he talked oratorically about boy alarmists and discoursed upon the necessity of having a man in office, "a man you can trust in times of danger and excitement, a man capable of meeting the burning issues of these perilous times with calmness and discretion." Nell put her head on one side and thought it over. ”

“ Davidge was about to turn away. The girl darted out to him again. "Quick, Tom, you idiot, you've got them now! Talk to them; they love you! Tell them the things he said about you were lies."
The inspiration was hers, but in some respects the masculine mind also has its superiority. Tom saw a better way than that, and waving his arms for silence, was off like a horse at the post:
"Friends: Far be it from me to attempt to continue the speech so unhappily interrupted by this amusing incident. I can only reiterate what the distinguished candidate has so ably and so eloquently said. ”

“ Like children, men and women at such times require a sign more than an argument. It helped some of them wonderfully, the sight of that trumpet. "Why, you don't suppose I'd stay here just for the fun of talking!" he laughed good-naturedly through his trumpet. "If the fire weren't out I'd run with the first of 'em!" Perhaps the humor of it had got into Davidge's voice, or else it was merely the unconsciously transmitted conviction that there was no fire. ”

“ Apparently the only reason the machine allowed them to have this place was because it had been undergoing repairs which were still unfinished. But it did not matter about the size of the audience as long as it included the inevitable reporters. They would do the rest.
Another sharp curve swept the girl almost into his arms. Her feet, clutching vainly at the rubber-covered floor of the car, slipped out from under her, and despite the low partition between the seats, Davidge felt the sweet weight of her slenderness against him. ”

“ The natural man within him raged, and he had to battle with a suffusing impulse to rush back, snatch her up in his arms, and make off with her to the uttermost ends of the earth, there to fight and keep her for his own to the end of time. ”

“ Tom's room was two flights above the opera-house. The opening between the two was near the top of the wings of the opera-house stage and directly adjoining the stage of the smaller auditorium; in other words, all the noise of the big meeting was pouring up into the smaller meeting as through a megaphone. That was why the machine's committee had secured such a large and loud band; that was why every prominent man who entered the opera-house was cheered so enthusiastically. The Independents' rally was a failure. No other building was obtainable. ”

“ Why did you put my car out of order? Why did you run away with me? Why did you come so far out of your route?"
"Oh, just for a lark."
"Nonsense! You wouldn't risk missing the speech of your life just for a lark. You know it's because you were simply crazy to have me with you. I know it, too. A woman can always tell!" ”

“ Colonel Hallowell and several others on the platform sprang forward to quiet the crowd; some of the rest ran off the stage. "Keep your seats," someone in the orchestra kept shouting excitedly.
"There isn't any fire; there isn't any fire!" called Nell. No one heard her.
Out across the stage hanging to a rope swung Tom, streaked with dust. He dropped near the box, jumped across the footlights, and then back again with the girl in his arms. "You're safe, my darling, anyway, he cried as he made through the crowd for the property-room. ”

“ Her father, who, with good-natured cynicism, took it for granted that this efficient young man would get over "the reform stage" and come around to a practical view of certain matters after his approaching defeat, had once remarked to Nell that Tom had great powers of concentration. She turned now and looked at him, saying to herself, "He has great powers of concentration."
With that something happened he knew nothing of. Somehow or other there had suddenly come to her at last the old feminine desire to belong to a man ”

“ The candidate for governor turned on full power and the car leaped down the Carusey road with the coil singing higher and higher in ecstasy.
"Now we are even," thought the girl, smiling under her handkerchief. ”

“ There's an extra seat, you see." They not only gave her a seat, but put her in front, where everybody in the audience could see that Miss Hallowell was their guest.
"Here comes your father," said one of the ladies; "he doesn't often attend political gatherings."
"Neither do I," said the girl, watching her father being led to a place of honor not far from the chairman of the meeting, which forthwith started off with a rush.
With Davidge things were not going so favorably. The moment he entered the smaller hall upstairs he discovered why he had been allowed by the machine to have it. ”

“ It's the scheme of the universe, and we happen to be part of the universe. Ideals is only another name for obstacles. The logical conclusion of self-sacrifice is self-annihilation; and surely the object of being can't be non-being. ”

“ The speaker's efforts to convince the people that he was one of them, despite well-known handicaps of birth and inheritance, appealed to her as too delicious to keep to herself. The money enabling him to fight corporate wealth happened to have been inherited from a corporation. ”