blithe music of anthems from the choirs. The broad sidewalks were moving
parterres of living flowers--so it seemed when your eye looked upon the
Easter girl.

Gentlemen, frock-coated, silk-hatted, gardeniaed, sustained the
background of the tradition. Children carried lilies in their hands. The
windows of the brownstone mansions were packed with the most opulent
creations of Flora, the sister of the Lady of the Lilies.

Around a corner, white-gloved, pink-gilled and tightly buttoned, walked
Corrigan, the cop, shield to the curb. Danny knew him.

"Why, Corrigan," he asked, "is Easter? I know it comes the first time
you're full after the moon rises on the seventeenth of March--but why?
Is it a proper and religious ceremony, or does the Governor appoint it
out of politics?"

"'Tis an annual celebration," said Corrigan, with the judicial air of
the Third Deputy Police Commissioner, "peculiar to New York. It extends
up to Harlem. Sometimes they has the reserves out at One Hundred and
Twenty-fifth Street. In my opinion 'tis not political."

"Thanks," said Danny. "And say--did you ever hear a man complain of
hippopotamuses? When not specially in drink, I mean."

"Nothing larger than sea turtles," said Corrigan, reflecting, "and there
was wood alcohol in that."

Danny wandered. The double, heavy incumbency of enjoying simultaneously
a Sunday and a festival day was his.