From the park's bandstand, William J.
Bryan was preaching to his open-air Sunday School class of tourists, two thousand strong.

Around the bandstand the audience stood or sat in rapt interest.
The Australian-pine lane, to the rear, was lined with all manner of automobiles, from limousine to battered flivver.
The cars' occupants listened as best they could--through the whirr of sea-planes and the soft hum of Sabbath traffic and the dry slither of a myriad grating palm-fronds in the trade-wind's wake--to the preacher's words.
The space of shaded grass, between lane and hotel-grounds and bandstand, was starred by white-clad children, and by men who sprawled drowsily upon the springy turf, their straw hats tilted above their eyes.

The time was mid-February.

The thermometers on the Royal Palm veranda registered seventy-three.

No rain had fallen in weeks to mar the weather's perfection.
"Scientists are spending $5,000,000 to send an expedition into Africa in search of the 'missing-link'!" the orator was thundering.