268 BANQUET. 



tion. On Thorsday, I put down 'Thordly' and so on until I get to the end of the week, so 

 when the Lord's day comes I rise in my pulpit with a parfectly prepared dascourse." To 

 which orderly layout the other replied : "Aweel, mon, I dinna think much o' yer plan." 

 "Weel," answered the first with some asperity, "and how wad ye do it ?" "Weel, brither," 

 he replied, "the trouble wi' yer plan is that as ye jot down the heads o' yer dascourse, the deil 

 is just as busy as the reverend clargy, and I ween he is looking o'er yer shoulder and he sees 

 the whole matter o' yer dascourse, so he gets busy wi' yer congregation instanter, and when 

 the Sabbath morn comes and ye mount yer pulpit the evil one has got abroad among yer 

 people through the week and has discoonted all yer goin' to say." "Well, how do you do it, 

 then," asked the nettled parson. "Why, I use no pad. I commit nothin' to writing and when 

 I get up on the Sabbath morn the deil himsel' don't know what I'mi goin' to say." Now, 

 doctor, I commend this practice to you for what it is worth, remarking, of course, that it is 

 only valuable in case his satanic majesty is accustomed to circulate among your parishioners. 



But to return to the speech on the Army, which I was commandeered toi make and for 

 which you will see I have made no such preparation as the first Scotch preacher, I don't 

 know but that it would be seemly for me to turn from the gospel to the law and follow the 

 example of a lawyer who was at the country bar where I began practice. There was a lot of 

 fun going on there and we had one lawyer at our bar, quite an exception to the general rule, 

 I beg to say, who never would talk much to the point, but the less he had in his case the 

 more he was wont to talk. We called him "old shell the woods," for when he got a case on 

 which he hadn't a leg to stand he would wink to us as he rose to address the jury and say, 

 "Well, I guess there is nothing left for me to ^o but to 'shell the woods.' " 



Now, of course speaking for the Army, they are target hitters, bull's-eye chaps, but if' 

 they commandeer a rank and rankless outsider to speak for them the Army can't complain if 

 his projectiles drop in the depths of the forest or if, after the fashion of some other branches 

 of the service, I shoot short or overtop or even sidestep the ship at which I aim. Of course, 

 gentlemen, I recognize that the Army is the Army and the Navy is the Navy, but, after all, 

 they are both built on the substructure of the law. Why, Mr. Secretary Daniels, even you 

 could not build a ship, in fact you could not do anything in the Navy, and the Anny, too, could 

 do nothing, and the marines could do nothing, unless some laws were passed first. Really, 

 gentlemen, seriously speaking, the lawyers are at the foundation of everything, and as long 

 as there is no one here to-night to speak for the Army and yoni force me to speak for it and 

 you compel me to speak first — put me in the shock troops, for which, thanks — ^because you say 

 that is the proper program for the Navy host toward the Army gniest — I recognize that when 

 you had the dominie lead off first with the blessing that next after the gospel marches the law, 

 then the Army swings in and last, but not least, if I am to trust the testimony of that great 

 sailor, the Honorable Secretary of the Navy — last, but not least, trails the Navy. 



Now, gentlemen, of course, as I have made no preparation for this occasion I ought to 

 stop pretty soon, but I want to tell you that when I get a chance to make a speech I generally 

 make a pretty long one, and it happens that I have been kept pretty quiet by a couple of law- 



