The crowd, we soon discovered, was bourgeois in the extreme. Young men
from the mill escorted young women from the shops. The young men wore
flaring collars three sizes too large; the young women white cotton
mitts three sizes too small. The older men spat, and talked through
their noses; the women drawled out a monotonous flow of speech
concerning the annoyances of domestic life. A gang of uncouth practical
jokers, exploding in horse-laughter, skylarked about, jostling rudely.
A village band, uniformed solely with cheap carriage-cloth caps, brayed
excruciatingly. The reception committee had decorated, with red and
white silesia streamers and rosettes, an ordinary side-bar buggy, to
which a long rope had been attached, that the great man might be
dragged by his fellow-citizens to the public square.

Nobody seemed to be taking the affair too seriously. It was evidently
more than half a joke. Anti-Smith was more good-humouredly in evidence
than the winning party. Just this touch of buffoonery completed our
sense of the farce-comedy character of the situation. The town was
tawdry in its preparations--and knew it; but half sincere in its
enthusiasm--and knew it. If the crowd had been composed of Americans,
we should have anticipated an unhappy time for Smith; but good, loyal
Canadians, by the limitations of temperament, could get no further than
a spirit of manifest irreverence.

In the shifting of the groups Dick and I became separated, but shortly
I made him out worming his way excitedly toward me, his sketch-book
open in his hand.

"Come here," he whispered. "There's going to be fun. They're going to
open up on old Smith after all."