likely to become such a figure? Is it not a duty we of the town owe to
future greatness that we push him forward? So reasoned the men of Caxton
and paid a kind of court to the boy who sat on the window ledge of the
hall while the other boys of the town waited on the sidewalk below.

John Telfer was chairman of the mass meeting. He was always chairman of
public meetings in Caxton. The industrious silent men of position in the
town envied his easy, bantering style of public address, while pretending
to treat it with scorn. "He talks too much," they said, making a virtue of
their own inability with apt and clever words.

Telfer did not wait to be appointed chairman of the meeting, but went
forward, climbed the little raised platform at the end of the hall, and
usurped the chairmanship. He walked up and down on the platform bantering
with the crowd, answering gibes, calling to well-known men, getting and
giving keen satisfaction with his talent. When the hall was filled with
men he called the meeting to order, appointed committees and launched into
a harangue. He told of plans made to advertise the big day in other towns
and to get low railroad rates arranged for excursion parties. The
programme, he said, included a musical carnival with brass bands from
other towns, a sham battle by the military company at the fairgrounds,
horse races, speeches from the steps of the town hall, and fireworks in
the evening. "We'll show them a live town here," he declared, walking up
and down the platform and swinging his cane, while the crowd applauded and
shouted its approval.

When a call came for voluntary subscriptions to pay for the fun, the
audience quieted down. One or two men got up and started to go out,
grumbling that it was a waste of money. The fate of the celebration was on
the knees of the gods.