“I don’d knew vot id vos,” answered Hans, “but I veel like I vos peing tickled a fedder by till I couldn’t stood him no longer alretty.”
“Begorra! Oi fale loike Oi’d nivver get over it!” said Barney Mulloy. “Oi’ll drame av this fer a year.”
Elsie is there. She is saying nothing, but the joy in her blue eyes speaks. She looks at Frank as that mighty cheer for him rolls up to the rocket-riven sky. She sees Inza’s hand on Frank’s arm, and then—then she turns to Hodge.
Bart, once called selfish, feels that he is far happier than he would be were those men cheering for him. A good, true friend Bart had been, and in this hour there is nothing of envy in his heart.
Why should there be? Elsie was beside him, and, somehow, he felt that for all of Frank’s great glory, for all of bewildering, dark-eyed Inza, he—Bart—had won the prize of prizes.
“Speech!” shouted an ’Umpty-sixer, as the cheering subsided.
“Speech! Speech!” roared the others.
“Speech by Billy Bilton, the only and original windmill of ’Umpty-six!” cried an old grad. “Put him up—put him in the wagon with the fireworks! Shoot off your face, Billy! Billy Bilton!”
“Billy Bilton! ’Umpty-six!” roared the crowd.
Billy Bilton was the Honorable William P. Bilton, representative in Congress for the great and glorious Commonwealth of Maine. Billy smiled, and that smile was something worth beholding! He removed the cigar from his mouth and held it between his fingers.