“Captain, I am glad to meet you,” continued the foreman, “and in behalf of Deluge Number One, I have the honor to tender you the escort of the company through the principal streets of the village to the hotel.”
All the conspirators heard the foreman’s words, and their faces betrayed the utmost consternation. Enoch was the only one among them who kept his wits about him.
“Thank you, sir,” said he, returning the fireman’s salute. “You are very kind, and I am proud to accept your offer of escort. What do you want me to do?”
“You will please form on the right of my company, which is drawn up in line on the other side of the depot. Let your band march in the centre. We have nothing better than a drum corps, but we can give you a noisy, if not a musical, welcome.”
The foreman continued to talk in this way while the car was being side-tracked; and he looked so jolly and good-natured, and seemed so anxious to do something to please the boys, that Jones’s heart smote him.
“I declare, it is too had to fool a man like that,” said he, when he had a chance to say a word to Enoch in private. “I’ll bet he’s a splendid fellow.”
“I know he is,” was Enoch’s reply. “But how are we going to keep from fooling him? We didn’t ask him to come out here, and we can’t very well request him to withdraw his company and leave us alone. It wouldn’t be safe for us to tell him how the thing stands, for he’s a stranger, and we don’t know how far to trust him. He’s here, and we’ve got to do as he says.”
And they did, although there were many among them who wished that the foreman had been in Guinea or some other place before he came out to offer them the escort of his company. He did it out of the goodness of his heart, of course, but all the same his unsolicited attentions were a nuisance as well as a source of uneasiness and alarm to the conspirators, who had hoped to go and come without attracting anybody’s notice.
When their car had been pushed upon the sidetrack, and the train had cut loose from it and gone on, the conspirators disembarked at the word of command, and marching with soldier-like step and well-aligned ranks, moved down the street to take the position assigned them. Then the parade began. It didn’t amount to much, of course, but the village people and the farmers and their families who had come miles in their big lumber wagons on purpose to witness it, evidently thought it something grand, for they thronged the streets on both sides and cheered the students loudly at every turn. After marching through the principal thoroughfares—and there were so few of them that it did not take them long to do that—the column was halted in front of the hotel, the band fell out and the firemen formed open ranks, facing inward. When the students, in obedience to Enoch’s command, executed the movement “fours right” and then “right by twos,” and passed through their lines, the firemen saluted them by uncovering their heads, the boys replying in the same way. There was scarcely one among them who did not despise himself for receiving and returning honors which he was not entitled to receive or return, but there was no help for it.
The dining-room of the hotel had been engaged for the evening, and when the students had marched into it and broken ranks, Enoch took a hasty glance about him and then called his trusty counselors, Jones, Lester and Endicott, together for a consultation. The landlord had made a desperate attempt to decorate the room for the occasion, and had succeeded remarkably well, considering the very short notice he had received. The walls were covered with flags and wreaths of evergreen, and the long tables, which sparkled with glass and silverware, were adorned with a profusion of flowers.