ry-all, bearing the
druggist of Bonneville and his women-folk, arrived in front of the new
barn. Immediately afterward an express wagon loaded down with a
swarming family of Spanish-Mexicans, gorgeous in red and yellow colours,
followed. Billy, the stableman, and his assistant took charge of the
teams, unchecking the horses and hitching them to a fence back of the
barn. Then Caraher, the saloon-keeper, in "derby" hat, "Prince Albert"
coat, pointed yellow shoes and inevitable red necktie, drove into the
yard on his buckboard, the delayed box of lemons under the seat. It
looked as if the whole array of invited guests was to arrive in one
unbroken procession, but for a long half-hour nobody else appeared.
Annixter and Caraher withdrew to the harness room and promptly involved
themselves in a wrangle as to the make-up of the famous punch. From time
to time their voices could be heard uplifted in clamorous argument.

"Two quarts and a half and a cupful of chartreuse."

"Rot, rot, I know better. Champagne straight and a dash of brandy."

The druggist's wife and sister retired to the feed room, where a bureau
with a swinging mirror had been placed for the convenience of the women.
The druggist stood awkwardly outside the door of the feed room, his coat
collar turned up against the draughts that drifted through the barn, his
face troubled, debating anxiously as to the propriety of putting on his
gloves. The Spanish-Mexican family, a father, mother and five children
and sister-in-law, sat rigid on the edges of the hired chairs, silent,
constrained, their eyes lowered, their elbows in at their sides,
glancing furtively from under their eyebrows at the decorations or
watching with intense absorption young Vacca, son of one of the division
superintendents, who wore a checked coat and white thread gloves and
who paced up and down the length of the barn, frowning, very important,
whittling a wax candle over the floor to make it slippery for dancing.

The musicians arrived, the City Band of Bonneville--Annixter having
managed to offend the leader of the "Dirigo" Club orchestra, at the very
last moment, to such a point that he had refused his services. These
members of the City Band repaired at once to their platform in the
corner. At every instant they laughed uproariously among themselves,
joshing one of their number, a Frenchman, whom they called "Skeezicks."
Their hilarity reverberated in a hollow, metallic roll among the rafters