"Oh, la, la!" chuckled Brother Copas. "Be off, then, to your Territorials, Mr. Chaplain! I see Mr. Isidore, yonder, losing his temper with the squad as only an artist can.… But—believe an old man, dear sir—you on your horse are not only misreading the Sermon but mistaking the Mount!"
Mr. Colt rode off to his squad, and none too soon; for the men, startled by Mr. Isidore's sudden onslaught of authority and the explosive language in which he ordered them hither and thither, cursing one for his slowness with the measuring-tape, taking another by the shoulders and pushing him into position, began to show signs of mutiny. Mr. Julius Bamberger mopped a perspiring brow as he ran about vainly trying to interpose.
"Isidore, this is damned nonsense, I tell you!"
"You leave 'em to me," panted Mr. Isidore. "Tell me I don't understand managing a crowd like this! It's part of ze method, my goot Julius. Put ze fear of ze Lord into 'em, to start wiz. Zey gromble at first; Zen zey findt zey like it: in the endt zey lof you. Hein? It is not for nozzing zey call me ze Bageant King!…"
The old man and the child, left to themselves, watched these operations for a while across the greensward, over which the elms now began to lengthen their shadows.
"The Chaplain was right," said Brother Copas. "Mr. Isidore certainly does not let the grass grow under his feet."
"If I were the grass, I shouldn't want to," said Corona.