nce, that the great event of the seven
years took place. My young acquaintance had two or three days free of
engagements, and he spent these in watching the preparations for the
procession. He spoke French with a fluency and purity which excited my
envy, and he spent most of his spare time among the village people, who
talked and thought and dreamed of nothing but the procession. Wherever
he went Scraper accompanied him, and wherever Scraper went Lil was to be
seen following in fascinated admiration.

For a whole week the drum had known but little rest. I never learned the
purpose of the proceeding, but every day and all day, from long before
daylight till long after dark, somebody marched about the village and
rattled unceasingly upon the drum. It could not possibly have been one
man who did it all, for the energies of no one man that ever lived could
have been equal to the task. Most of the time it was far away, and it
only made two daily promenades past the hotel, but whenever I listened
for it I could hear it, beating the same unweary rataplan. Then at
intervals all day and every day, the big gun boomed and the clarion
blared until I used to dream that I was back at Plevna or the Shipka
Pass, and could not get my "copy" to London and New York because
Monsieur Dorn had filled the Houssy Wood with Cossacks from Janenne. It
may be supposed that all this _charivari_ was but an evil thing for
a man as much in need of rest as I was, but I verily believe that the
noise and bustle of the preparations, though they robbed me now and then
of an hour of morning sleep, were almost as useful to me as the idleness
I enjoyed, and the tranquil country air into which I could drive or
wander afoot whenever the fancy for perfect quiet came upon me.

At last the great day dawned, and the great event dawned earlier than
the day. At five o'clock the noise of drum and clarion began, and the
light of torches flared on the painted fronts of houses--yellow and pink
and blue--in the quaint old village street. A little later a band came
by with shattering brass and booming drum, and for an hour or so the
whole place was in a ferment. The cavalry came clattering into the
_Place_, the hoarse voice of Monsieur Dorn barked through the orders
which had by this time grown conventional, and his squadron jingled for
the last time for seven years through the movements he had taught them
at the expense of so much time and lung power. Then a strange foreb