"And I'll ask for a bottle of lemonade, if there's no objection," added Mr. Norseman.
The publican was mollified at this order, and while the others talked, he turned to his former enemy.
"I hope you'll not think twice of what I said, and come to my free lunch with the rest, Henry Norseman," he said.
The other nodded.
"Plenty of time, plenty of time," he answered.
"I can't sit cool and hear beer attacked," explained Mr. Pearn. "As a man of reason, you must see that."
"Certainly, certainly. I'm not unreasonable—I'm large-minded even over beer, I believe. If we must have it—poison though it is—let us have it good."
"And the man who says he ever got bad beer at my house is a liar," concluded Mr. Pearn.
The schoolmaster rapped on the table and resumed the main discussion.
"Now as to this procession," he began. "We must have features. I believe I am allowed some claim to be original in my ideas. Indeed, I am too much so, and even in the scholastic line, find myself rather ahead of the times. But with a procession, what can be better than originality? Then I say we must have some impersonations—historic characters—to walk in procession. They must be allegorical and typical, and, in fact, emblematical."