Page:The gold brick (1910).djvu/160

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stand, he saw the pale speakers and the countless vice-presidents—his father was one of the vice-presidents—and he listened to the inspiring song of the Glee Club:

"Dinna ye hear the slogan,
Jimmy Blaine and Johnny Logan?
The plumed knight and warrior bold
  Are bound to gain the day.
The golden gates are creaking
While the Yankee boys are speaking,
And the Johnnies are retreating,
  For we're bound to gain the day."

His eyes had been blurred by the tears, his heart had ached with the secret pain of patriotism. He had registered sweet vows; he never could forget—and yet, now, just as his education was complete and he was ready to enter upon his career, just as the new sign of the new firm of Halliday and Halliday, attorneys-at-law, was swinging at the foot of the stairs in the People's National Bank block, he had turned Democrat. It was a sore subject at home. He and his father no longer discussed the tariff question. Mrs. Halliday said it made her nervous, as it might anybody.

That winter Halliday did nothing more serious