The Man who Forgot Author:James Hay Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER TWO There was about John Smith some indefinable thing which other men did not have, a tenseness and swift force that made him seem the white fire of l... more »ife. He flamed through his days. He dominated dinner tables in the evenings. The quick turn of his head, the flash of his black eyes, the strong, fast movements of his hands, the sureness of his stride—these were the unmistakable, flaunting banners that caught the eye and drew attention to the masterful spirit of the man. He was brilliant. There had been born in him a marvellous faculty for stripping from a situation all extraneous and inconsequential facts so that he might see, and make others see, the stark-naked figure of an issue, a truth. The most striking thing about him was his confidence, his final conviction that what he proposed to do he would do. He was absolutely alien to doubt. And, while he devoted himself to a serious work, a tremendous task, he was alert, sparkling. His mind was electric. Physically he was like wires. Tall, thin, broad of shoulder and narrow of thigh, he perpetually was strung taut. His reserve energy never was exhausted. He had come to Washington early in the preceding May to conduct a fight which made the young laugh and the old pray. Practically unheralded, entirely unadvertised, he had taken his place almost within the shadow of the Capitol's dome and had made the calm announcement: "Whisky must be thrown out of the United States!" Charles Waller—euphoniously known among his associates as " Cholliewollie "—printed in his paper a short announcement of Smith's arrival and mission. "What the agitator wants," the article said, "is action by Congress on the pending resolution to authorize an amendment to the Federal Constitution providing for the absolute abolition of the liquor tra...« less