The cook escapes from the housekeeper. She climbs the steps of the portico. She flaunts the white crape. "Begone, ye blasphemous wretches!" she cries.
"What the devil is that?" asks the first citizen.
The cook is fastening the white gauze and the white satin ribbon on the bell knob.
"Do ye see that, ye graveyard robbers? Will ye blow yer brass bands and yer tin pipes now, ye murtherin' wretches?"
The host has seen the signal of death, as it flaunts under the flickering light of the gas lamp. There is an insensible yet rapid departure. There were ten thousand hearers. There are, perhaps, ten hundred whose eyes are as yet fixed upward on the orator.
"Our republic will forever remain splendid among nations," comes the rich voice from the balcony. One may see a form swaying, an arm reaching forth in the dim light.
The ten hundred are diminishing. It is like the banners of the auroral light. The ten hundred were there a moment ago. Now it is but a memory. No one is there. The street is so empty that a belated delivery wagon may rattle along, stopping at wrong houses to fix the number.
The orator speaks on. He weeps and he thunders.
Hasten out on that balcony, Richard Tarbelle, and stop this scandal! Lead that demented orator in! Pluck him by the sleeve! Pluck harder!
"The voice of the people, my fellow-citizens," cries the people's idol, "is the voice--is the voice of God."