part of the Declaration of Independence.

Cedric was so excited that his eyes shone and his cheeks were red and
his curls were all rubbed and tumbled into a yellow mop. He could hardly
wait to eat his dinner after he went home, he was so anxious to tell
his mamma. It was, perhaps, Mr. Hobbs who gave him his first interest
in politics. Mr. Hobbs was fond of reading the newspapers, and so Cedric
heard a great deal about what was going on in Washington; and Mr. Hobbs
would tell him whether the President was doing his duty or not. And
once, when there was an election, he found it all quite grand, and
probably but for Mr. Hobbs and Cedric the country might have been
wrecked.

Mr. Hobbs took him to see a great torchlight procession, and many of the
men who carried torches remembered afterward a stout man who stood near
a lamp-post and held on his shoulder a handsome little shouting boy, who
waved his cap in the air.

It was not long after this election, when Cedric was between seven and
eight years old, that the very strange thing happened which made so
wonderful a change in his life. It was quite curious, too, that the
day it happened he had been talking to Mr. Hobbs about England and
the Queen, and Mr. Hobbs had said some very severe things about the
aristocracy, being specially indignant against earls and marquises. It
had been a hot morning; and after playing soldiers with some friends
of his, Cedric had gone into the store to rest, and had found Mr. Hobbs
looking very fierce over a piece of the Illustrated London News, which
contained a picture of some court ceremony.

"Ah," he said, "that's the way they go on now; but they'll get enough