Specimens of his genuine wood-pile eloquence, though by no means uncommon, are yet not easily accessible to the biographical compiler.  Very few of his sayings have ever found their way into print, and when thus presented they are of necessity shorn of much of their strength, and deprived of the impressiveness which they derive from the orator’s gesticulation and delivery.  We will, however, endeavor to present our readers with a few, selected at random, from discourses on various occasions and subjects.

It is morning.  A group of students, just before going into recitation, cluster around Bill in the hope of getting a speech from him.  He remains deaf to their entreaties till the bell sounds, when with uplifted hand and glaring eye he thus addresses them, in a voice audible for about half a mile.

“Go in and take your secretary, persecuting yourself with the dandelions and robes of righteousness.  All the life, all the music, and the blood and electricity rolling over the mountains with the elements of pietude spread all over the fundament.  Ottah!!  R-R-R-Rose Ottah!  Rack-a-tack.”

As might be surmised from a perusal of this effort, his peroration is rarely in keeping with the main portion of his oration.  In fact, the close of all his speeches may be said to be very similar, being invariably “Ottah,” or some variation of it.

Occasionally the exuberance of his genius leads him into the error of crowding together metaphors to the detriment of perspicuity.  When, for example, he says: 

“The waters of heaven descending on the breast-bones of the women; and the youthful Moses, sitting on the back-bone of eternity, sucking the pap of time,” we feel that there is a redundancy in the expression.

Some specimens of his remarkable verbal and figurative power in conversation are forcible in the extreme.  It is said, with what truth we know not, that on one occasion the venerable head of this institution ventured to “tackle” him in a religious argument.  Bill, after listening with a deference which was evidently a tribute of respect to the Doctor’s position rather than an acknowledgment of the cogency of his reasoning, settled the question by an interrogatory:  “Dr. Hopkins, do you suppose I’m goin’ to believe that when I die I’ll go up and sit on one of those clouds with my legs hangin’ over?”

We infer from the above that his religious belief is somewhat vague.

Soon after the marriage of Charles, Bill’s son, the heir apparent of the Pratt estates, Bill was asked how Charles’ wife was getting along, whereupon he was pleased to remark that he believed she was “under conviction.”  Since then the conviction has become a certainty, and Bill is a grandfather.  Commenting on the appearance of his grandchild, he has been heard to say:  “She’s a pretty child.  I say she looks like Charles.  Charles says she looks like me.”

There are few scenes that abide longer in the student’s recollection than those in which Bill is the central figure.  It not infrequently happens that, when a number of lovers of fun are gathered around him as he vigorously brandishes axe or saw, one of them, willing, for the sake of drawing him out, to make a martyr of himself for the public good, addresses him.  On such occasions a conversation, something as follows, occurs: