“Moral wave! Mr. Schwarmer,” drawled one of the ladies. “Re-al-ly you must be joking. I have been educated to think it was an exceedingly immoral procedure not to celebrate our Independence Day in an appropriate and impressive manner.”
“Impressive—yes truly impressive, dear lady; but you see it’s too impressive sometimes—too largely impressive, as everything is apt to be in this country—that is if it’s impressive at all, and now and then it impresses the wrong boy. Last year a lawyer’s little boy had a finger broken and an alderman’s boy had an eye hurt.”
“Ah indeed! That was most unfortunate,” replied Miss Drawling; “and they were people of consequence—that is, in this small community.”
“Certainly! certainly—that is of the ‘toad in the puddle style’” laughed Schwarmer. “So you see they called a meeting, a sort of grievance meeting and resolved not to let their children have any more fireworks. Now I believe they are having a pious celebration in the church grove or graveyard, I don’t know which.”
“Whew! oh whew!” whistled Mr. Bombs; “and so you have all that patriotic fervor on your hands! Shall we make a bonfire of it tomorrow as a starter to their lagging patriotism?”
“Not unless we go a-fishing,” laughed Schwarmer, beckoning him aside. “You know how a thing of that kind turns when the sediments are all stirred up so to speak. A lot of cranks seized the fireworks and dumped them all into the river! They fancied they were our forefathers, I suppose, dumping the English tea into Boston Harbor—the knaves!”
“Zounds!” exclaimed Mr. Bombs. “That was a steep proceeding. How high do you suppose it will climb?”
“K. K.,” replied Schwarmer. “Probably until the attention is called off by some new thing—very new and of more dazzling proportions—like those new inventions of yours—for instance.”
“I understand! Good! Good! Nero is himself again. The siege of Yorktown! The Battle of Gettysburg! and Johnny Bull’s Bellows to offset Pang’s Eagle Screams! Eh, Schwarmer!” added Bombs in a low tone, giving him a sly poke in the ribs; “and money made out of them. That’s better than giving away things to an ungrateful public. They can’t throw Yorktown into the river if they should try. You are a trump, Schwarmer.”
That ended the business for Schwarmer. There was nothing that pleased him better than being called a trump. He had not really intended to make a business proposition; but the shrewd would-be million-maker and son of a million-maker had construed it into that meaning, and it was understood to be an unwritten bargain between them.