“Beg pardon, Miss Cornwallis; but it would appear from latest advices that the American victory over England is being turned into a most ridiculous defeat. If the Mother Country had only known her wayward children’s fondness for the firecracker and toy pistol all that she would have needed to have done when they turned against her, would have been to have furnished them with a generous supply of those dastardly things and they would have destroyed themselves.”
“The London Pyrotechnist is shrewd enough to take advantage of the situation,” laughed Admiral Larkins. “He has surrounded the country with his manufacturing tents and is said to have sold $10,000,000 worth of Independence Day fireworks to Americans to celebrate their victory over the English, last year—American casualties for that day footed up to about 3,500 in killed and wounded. It’s a good scheme from a financial point of view.”
THE FUNNY FOURTH RACKET ON ENGLISH SOIL.
Another Englishman who had still less understanding of the Cornwallis matter, but was aware of the annual higeria of Americans to foreign lands to escape the noise and danger of their national day, remarked: “It’s a providential thing though for the Americans of today that their forebears did not push their victorious hordes up to the north pole, else they would have no near-by place to fly to, while their own country is being made too hot for them.”
How long this conversation would have continued it is difficult to say had it not been for the distressful barking of Colonel Jordon’s English terrier, who rushed in with a long string of firecrackers tied to his tail.
His first dash was toward Ruth, probably for the reason that she had taken his part one day when the boys were tormenting him. He would have leaped into her lap had she not warded him off with the vacant chair by her side. He leaped into the chair, however, then across the table toward Colonel Jordon and down on the floor and off to the lower end of the dining room where the landlady was cowering in mortal terror, as well she might; for she had on a thin muslin dress and was completely cornered. By that time the firecrackers were in flame and the result was inevitable. They set fire to the poor woman’s dress and pandemonium reigned. The boarders rushed to the rescue with cups of tea and coffee, pitchers of water and milk, rugs and top-coats. She was finally saved with only one leg burned; Colonel Jordon’s dog was so badly hurt that he had to be shot to end his misery. Little Teddy Bearington who came in unobserved while the confusion was at its height and was trampled down by hurrying feet, barely escaped death by suffocation.
But the Bearington boys had enjoyed their celebration. Mr. Bearington paid the bill the next day and the whole posse beat a retreat across the Canadian border. They showed signs of disorganization during the remainder of the heated season; but when the fall political campaign came on, they were in high feather again—at least Mr. Bearington and the three older boys. Hardly a day passed that they did not tell how they had celebrated the Nation’s Glorious Day on English soil.