ially where the wide vacant spaces of the Tennessee Street common
had been preempted by the festal enterprises of Director General AEsop
Loving and his confreres, the press became thicker and ever thicker.
Here the crowds overflowed upon the gravel roadway, narrowing the
thoroughfare to a lane through which the paraders barely might pass.
They did pass, though at a lessened pace, until their front ranks had
reached the approximate middle breadth of the old show-grounds, with the
tabernacle looming against the sunset's dying fires an eighth of a mile
on beyond.

It is necessary here and now that, taking our eyes from this scene, we
hark back to the Wednesday evening preceding. It will be recalled that
on this evening a certain motion was made and by acclamation adopted.
The maker of the motion, as we know, was Tecumseh Sherman Glass; its
beneficiary, as the reader shrewdly may have divined, was Cephus Fringe.
Beforehand perhaps the Professor had had vague misgivings as to the part
he was to play in the pageantry on the Eighth; perhaps in his mind he
had forecast the probability that he might suffer eclipse--a temporary
eclipse--but to an _artiste_ none the less distasteful--in the shadow of
the Sin Killer, for since the Sin Killer had originally promulgated the
idea of the procession it was only natural and only human that the Sin
Killer should devise to himself the outstanding place of honor in it.

Be these conjectures as they may be, it is not to be gainsaid that the
suggestion embodied in Cump Glass's motion was to Prof. Fringe highly
agreeable, insuring, as it did, a fair measure of prominence for him
without infringing upon his chief's distinctions. He showed his
approbation. I believe I already have intimated that Prof. Fringe was
not exactly prejudiced against himself. Any lingering aversions he may
have entertained in this quarter had long since been overcome.
Nevertheless a fresh doubt, arising from fresh causes, assailed him as
the first flush of satisfaction abated within him.

This new-born uneasiness betrayed itself in his voice and his manner
when, at the conclusion of the night's services, he encountered Cump
Glass in the middle aisle. The meeting was not entirely by chance; if
the truth is to be known, Cump had maneuvered to bring it about. The act
was his; a greater mind than his, though, had sponsored the act. And
Cump Glass, rightly interpreting the look upon Prof. Fringe's large,
plump face, guilef