ht here."

Mrs. Burton withdrew. A few moments later the door opened and a huge
bass drum rolled out on to the porch.

"I guess it'll have to be tightened a little," she said as she
surrendered it to Biscuit. And as he staggered down the walk under his
awkward burden, she called after him, "Now you take real good care of
it, won't you, Karl?"

Biscuit assured her that he would.

In further pursuance of the supposed instructions from Professor
Ingraham, Biscuit delivered the drum at the vestibule of the schoolhouse
which, fortunately, was not far away. It was, however, removed a short
time afterwards by parties unknown, and was next found in the Canes'
barn, where it remained until Decoration Day, silent and shrouded in
mystery and horse-blankets.

The evening that it arrived there Sube besought his mother for a
grenadier's tall fur cap.

"So you have decided to have a little company of soldiers, have you?"
she asked.

"Sort of," he replied evasively.

But Mrs. Cane did not pursue the inquiry. She realized that boys love to
be secretive about the most trivial matters, and turned her attention to
the contriving of the grenadier's cap. This was finally accomplished to
Sube's satisfaction by the coiling of a long fox boa round a form of
milliner's wire. Epaulettes of gilt paper, and a pair of red flannel
stripes on his intensely civilian knickerbockers completed his uniform.

CHAPTER VIII

IN THE LION'S CAGE

All things seemed to cooeperate to furnish that truly funereal aspect
without which no Decoration Day in a small town is complete.

In the first place Hon. E. Dalrymple Smythe of Rochester and Washington,
D. C., had accepted an invitation to be the orator of the day. This was
a distinct victory over Palmyra and Shortsville, which had to be content
with a mere assemblyman and a more mere district attorney--persons of
purely local reputation--while Tyre basked in the regal presence of a
personage of national fame. Colonel Smythe's voice had occupied more
newspaper space than any other east of the Mississippi River. Coughdrops
and codliver oil had been named for him. Correspondence schools featured
his method of making ANY man a convincing public speaker in thirty days
without leaving his own fireside. He was the editor of the ten volume
work, "The World's Most Flowery Orations," offered at the low
introductory price for thirty days only.

At his first word women wept; at his second, men; and at h