I followed. The decorated side-bar buggy might be well meant; the
village band need not have been interpreted as an ironical compliment;
the rest of the celebration might indicate paucity of resource rather
than facetious intent; but surely the figure of fun before us could not
be otherwise construed than as a deliberate advertising in the face of
success of the town's real attitude toward the celebration.

The man was short. He wore a felt hat, so big that it rested on his
ears. A gray wool shirt hung below his neck. A cutaway coat miles too
large depended below his knees and to the first joints of his fingers.
By way of official uniform his legs were incased in an ordinary rough
pair of miller's white trousers, on which broad strips of red flannel
had been roughly sewn. Everything was wrinkled in the folds of
too-bigness. As though to accentuate the note, the man stood very
erect, very military, and supported in one hand the staff of an English
flag. This figure of fun, this man made from the slop-chest, this
caricature of a scarecrow, had been put forth by heavy-handed
facetiousness to the post of greatest honour. He was Standard-Bearer to
the occasion! Surely subtle irony could go no further.

A sudden movement caused the man to turn. One sleeve of the faded,
ridiculous old cutaway was empty. He turned again. From under the
ear-flanging hat looked unflinchingly the clear, steady blue eye of the
woodsman. And so we knew. This old soldier had come in from the Long
Trail to bear again the flag of his country. If his clothes were old
and ill-fitting, at least they were his best, and the largeness of the
empty sleeve belittled the too-largeness of the other. In all this
ribald, laughing, irreverent, commonplace, semi-vicious crowd he was
the one note of sincerity. To him this was a real occasion, and the