approval
greet the opposition. He realized that he had been placed in a false
position by the importunities of Mr. Thomas, and to him he now left the
brunt of the trouble by stepping out of the illumined circle and losing
himself in the company.

The fire-swept zone had no terrors for Perry. With one hand thrust
between the first and second buttons of his coat, and the other raised
in that gesture with which the orator stills the sea of discontent, he
stepped forward, and turning slowly about, brought his eyes to bear on
the contumacious Bolum. He indicated the target. Every optic gun in
the room was levelled at it. The upraised hand, the potent silence,
the solemn gaze of a hundred eyes was too much for the old man to bear.
Slowly he swung back on two legs of his chair, caught the rungs again
with the projecting soles, turned his eyes to the ceiling, closed them,
and set himself to imagining the station at Pleasantville. The rout
was complete.

Perry wheeled and faced me. The hand was lowered slowly; four fingers
disappeared and one long one, one quivering one, remained, a whip with
which to chastise the prisoner at the bar.

"Mark Hope," he began, in a deep, rich, resonant voice, "we welcome you
home. We have come down from the valley, fourteen mile through the
blazin' noonday sun, fourteen mile over wind-swept roads, that you,
when agin you step on the soil of our beloved county, may step into
lovin' hands, outstretched to meet you and bid you welcome. Welcome
home--thrice welcome--agin I say, welcome!"

[Illustration: "Welcome home--thrice welcome!"]

Both of the orator's hands swung upward and outward, and he looked
intently at the ceiling. He seemed prepared to catch me as I leaped
from a second-story window. The pause as he stood there braced to
receive the body of the returning soldier as it hurtled at him, gave
Isaac Bolum an opportunity to be magnanimous. He clapped his hands and
cheered. In an instant his shrill cry was drowned in a burst of
applause full of spirit and heart, closing with a flourish of wails
from Cevery Pulsifer and the latest of the Kallabergers. Perry's arms
fell gracefully to his side and he inclined his head and half closed
his eyes in acknowledgment. Then turning to Isaac, measuring every
word, in a voice clear and cutting, his long forefinger shaking, he
cried: "From the bloody battlefields of Cuby, from her tropic camps
where you suffered and bled, you come home to