e alacrity of one who has
old-time grudges still unsettled. He put a sandwich back into his
basket untasted, an ominous sign of how belligerency was overcoming
appetite. "Well, make b'lieve I'm the front door of the orphin asylum,
and come up and rap on me!"

With a promptitude that was absolutely terrifying the two lines of
red shirts began to draw together, voices growling bodingly, fists
clinching, eyes narrowing with the reviving hatred of old contests.
The triumphal entry of the Smyrna Ancients, their display of
prosperity, their monopoly of the plaudits and attention of the
throngs, the assumption of superior caste and manners, had stirred
resentment under every red shirt in the parade. But Vienna,
hereditary foe, seemed to be the one tacitly selected for the brunt
of the conflict.

"Hiram!" pleaded his wife, running to him and patting his convulsed
features with trembling fingers. "You said this was all goin' to be
genteel. You said you were goin' to show 'em how good manners and
politeness ought to run a firemen's muster. You said you were!"

By as mighty an effort of self-control as he ever exercised in his
life, Hiram managed to gulp back the sulphurous vilification he had
ready at his tongue's end, and paused a moment.

"That's right! I did say it!" he bellowed, his eyes sweeping the crowd
over his wife's shoulder. "And I mean it. It sha'n't be said that
the Smyrna Ancients were anything but gents. Let them that think a
bunged eye and a bloody nose is the right kind of badges to wear away
from a firemen's muster keep right on in their hellish career. As
for us"--he tucked his wife's arm under his own--"we remember there's
ladies present."

"Includin' the elephant," suggested the irrepressible Uncle Trufant,
indicating with his cane Imogene "weaving" amiably in the sunshine.

Cap'n Sproul crowded close and growled into the ear of the venerable
mischief-maker: "I don't know who set you on to thorn this crowd of
men into a fight, and I don't care. But there ain't goin' to be no
trouble here, and, if you keep on tryin' to make it, I'll give you
one figger of the Portygee fandle-dingo."

"What's that?" inquired Uncle Trufant, with interest.

"An almighty good lickin'," quoth the peacemaker. "I ain't a member
of a fire company, and I ain't under no word of honor not to fight."

The two men snapped their angry eyes at each other, and Uncle Trufant
turned away, intimidated for the moment. He confessed to h