Then suddenly it dawned on them that the grenadier in charge was none other than Sube Cane, and that the jaunty kettle-drummer was a gentleman commonly called Gizzard Tobin. Little attention was paid to the assistant bass-drummer, Biscuit Westfall. But he was important. He wielded no stick, yet carried most of the weight of the drum; and he was there from a sense of duty rather than desire. Orders alleged by Sube to have come directly from Professor Ingraham were quite explicit. And as the several fifers and snare-drummers had little to do with the subsequent events of the day they shall remain nameless.
The costumes of Cane's Marital Band were military, but they were far from uniform.
At last the procession moved. The Silver Cornet Band blared out a funeral march several blocks long, at the termination of which the Henderson Drum Corps gave a muffled selection that ended only when the cemetery had been reached. As the vast multitude assembled around the grave the Silver Cornet Band rendered Nearer My God to Thee with telling effect. And as the last sad notes died away Colonel E. Dalrymple Smythe removed his hat and began to clear his throat.
"My friends,—" he extended his arms and looked about helplessly, as if to create the impression that before the open grave even his words were powerless. However, it was his intention to remove that impression a little later. As he stood thus transfixed, a hubbub started somewhere back in the crowd. At first fitful and chaotic, it became more steady as it gathered force, and soon settled into a regular beat.
Pluff-a-luff—pluff-pluff
pluff-a-luff—pluff-pluff
pluff-a-luff—pluff-a-luff—pluff-a-luff
pluff-PLUFF!
It was the refrain of slack drums and tin whistles. There was plenty of noise, and plenty of rhythm, but no suspicion of a tune. For some moments Colonel Smythe waited for order to be restored, hands still poised in mid-air. Then he recognized the sound as the one he had previously heard, and feeling certain that no power on earth could stop it, he proceeded with his remarks as best he could.
Several persons motioned frantically for Grand Marshal Richards to quell the disturbance. He nodded his head and dashed off; but he went in the wrong direction—and the band played on.
Then Willum Edson, the leader of the Silver Cornet Band, took the law into his own hands and rushed over to put a stop to the din. But before he could get there Sube had brought his selection to a close, and was conversing in a suppressed though audible tone, accompanied by violent gesticulations, with a group of boys who had gathered round his musicians.
"We can't play, hey!—I showed you, didn't I?—It's a fake drum corpse, is it!—Fooled you, didn't I?"