gs, failed to comment on the banner of welcome over
Pettibone's shop, painted by Pettibone's own practical hand; or the
gaily bedighted Bon-Ton Grocery with the wonderful arrangement of
tomato-cans into the words, "Welcome to Wakefield." The Building and
Loan Association had stretched a streamer across the street, too, and
the President never noticed it. His eyes and tongue were caught away by
the ornate structure of the opera-house.

"Shelby Opera House. So many things named after Mr. Shelby. Is he the
founder of the city or--or--"

"No, just one of the citizens," said Pettibone.

"I should be delighted to meet him."

Three votes fell from the Presidential tree with a thud.

Had the committee been able to imagine in advance how Shelbyisms would
obtrude everywhere upon the roving eye of the visitor, whose one aim was
a polite desire to exclaim upon everything exclaimable, they might have
laid out the line of march otherwise.

But it was too late to change now, and they grew grimmer and grimmer as
the way led to the stately pleasure-dome which Shelby Khan had decreed
and which imported architects and landscape-gardeners had established.

Here were close-razored lawns and terraces, a lake with spouting
fountains, statues of twisty nymphs, glaring, many-antlered stags and
couchant lions, all among cedar-trees and flower-beds whose perfumes
saluted the Presidential nostril like a gentle hurrah.

Emerging through the trees were the roofs, the cupola and ivy-bowered
windows of the home of Shelby, most homeless at home. For, after all his
munificence, Wakefield did not like him. The only tribute the people had
paid him was to boost the prices of everything he bought, from land to
labor, from wall-paper to cabbages. And now on the town's great day he
had not been included in any of the committees of welcome. He had been
left to brood alone in his mansion like a prince in ill favor exiled to
his palace.

He did not know that his palace had delighted even the jaded eye of the
far-traveled First Citizen. He only knew that his fellow-townsmen
sneered at it with dislike.

Shelby was never told by the discreet committeemen in the carriage that
the President had exclaimed on seeing his home:

"Why, this is magnificent! This is an estate! I never dreamed
that--er--Wakefield was a city of such importance and such wealth. And
whose home is this?"

Somebody groaned, "Shelby's."

"Ah yes; Shelby's, of course. So many things