And the speaker on the stand demonstrated the truth of this conclusion by displaying a big British flag, which caught in its socket as he attempted to lift it and occasioned another pause in the speech.
"This enthusiasm makes me hungry," Maitland Tait observed, as the audience courteously saluted the ancient emblem of hostility, and the echoes of applause died away. "Since we're going to get no tea here, can't we drive by some place up-town? There's a good-looking place in Union Street—"
"But that would make you very late for your engagement, I'm afraid," I demurred. "It will take some little time to drive in."
He looked at me wonderingly for a moment.
"My engagement? Oh, yes—but it can wait."
"Then, if it can, I'm afraid Mrs. Walker will not let you off. I happen to know that—"
He cut short my argument by motioning me to pay attention to the speaker, who at the moment had replaced the flag of Pope Gregory's cunning, and was talking away at a great rate.
"... Yet, who can say that the hastiest actions do not often bring about the best results? Certainly when a decision is made out of an excessive desire to bring happiness to all parties concerned, its immediate action can not fail to denote a wholesome heartiness which should always be emulated.... Different from most men of his native country, possessing a genuinely warm heart, a subtle mentality, coupled with a conscience which impelled him always toward the right, he was enabled, by this one impetuous act, to become a benefactor of mankind! What he longed for was harmony—a harmonious union; and what he has achieved has been the direct outcome of a great longing. He created a union—wholesome, strengthening and permanent," I took down in shorthand.
I have a confused impression—I suppose I should say post-impression, for I didn't remember anything very clearly until afterward—that Betsy Ross, Pope Gregory, the Somethingth, and Mrs. Hiram Walker were all combining to tie my hands and feet together with thongs of red, white and blue.