For the best part of a week before the great Day of Jubilee Cai and 'Bias toiled together and toiled with a will, erecting the framework of a triumphal arch to span the roadway. Within-doors, in the intervals of household duty, Mrs Bowldler measured, drew, and cut out a number of capital letters in white linen, to be formed into a motto and sewn upon red Turkey twill, while Palmerston industriously constructed and wired gross upon gross of paper roses—an art in which he had been instructed by Fancy, who had read all about it in a weekly newspaper, 'The Cosy Hearth.' The two friends talked little to one another during those busy June days. Strollers-by—and it had become an evening recreation in Troy to stroll from one end of the town to the other and mark how things were getting along for the 22nd—found Captain Hocken and Captain Hunken ever at work but little disposed to chat; and as everyone knew of the old quarrel, so everyone noted the reconciliation and marvelled how it had come to pass. Even Mr Philp was baffled. Mr Philp, passing and repassing many times a day, never missed to halt and attempt conversation; with small result, however.
"It's a wonder to me," he grumbled at last, "how men of your age can risk scramblin' about on ladders with your mouths constantly full o' nails."
In the evenings they supped together. Mrs Bowldler had made free to suggest this.
"Which," said Mrs Bowldler in magnificent anacoluthon, "if we see it as we ought, this bein' no ordinary occasion, but in a manner of speakin' one of Potentates and Powers and of our feelin's in connection therewith; by which I allude to our beloved Queen, whom Gawd preserve!— Gawd bless her! I say, and He will, too, from what I know of 'im—and therefore deservin' of our yunited efforts; and, that bein' the case, it would distinkly 'elp, from the point of view of the establishment (meanin' Palmerston and me) if we (meanin' you, sir, and Captain Hunken) could make it convenient to have our meals in common. . . . The early Christians were not above it," she added. "Not they! Ho, not,—if I may use the expression—by a long chalk!"
She contrived it so delicately that afterwards neither Cai nor 'Bias could remember precisely at what date—whether on the Wednesday or on the Thursday—they slipped back into the old comfortable groove.
The arch occupied their thoughts. After supper, as they sat and smoked, their talk ran on it: on details of its construction; on the chances (exiguous indeed!) of its being eclipsed by rivals in the town, some in course of construction, a few as yet existent only in the promises of rumour.
Cai would say, "I hear the Dunstans are makin' great preparations in their back-yard. They mean to bring their show out at the last moment, and step it in barrels."
"I don't believe in barrels," 'Bias would respond. "Come a breeze o' wind, where are you? Come a strong breeze, and over you go, endangerin' life. It ought to be forbidden."
"No chance of a breeze, though." Cai had been studying the glass closely all the week.
"Fog, more like. 'Tis the time o' the year for fogs."