The parade moved but one block along Allerton Street then turned into Carlton Place which paralleled Terrace Avenue, then to the next cross street, and so into the thoroughfare of Terrace Avenue again, where restless and increasing throngs awaited its coming.
CHAPTER X
THE FIXER
Inside the school, also, an excited, expectant throng waited. Special permission had been given to the whole student body to view the parade and every one of the many windows facing on Terrace Avenue was filled with faces. Teachers (who are universally referred to as old by their pupils) were young again in those slow, expectant, listening moments. “Old” Cartright, “Old” Johnson, “Grouchy” Gerry, “Keep-in” Keeler were all there, with their clustering, elbowing charges about them, waiting to see the parade.
The large windows of the gymnasium were packed. So were the windows of the big assembly room. “Old” Granger, the music teacher, seemed almost human for once, as he actually elbowed his way to a front place where Doctor Sharpe smilingly awaited the coming of the great show.
The weather was too brisk for open windows, but the several hundred waiters heard the muffled strains of music, three blocks, two blocks, one block off, and in the renewed excitement and suspense many noses grew flat in an instant, pressed eagerly against the glass.
One block away. Half a block away. The great bass drum sounded like thunder. They could hear the complaining roar of a monarch lion. The frightful but rousing din of the calliope (eternal voice of the circus) smote their ears. Louder, louder, louder sounded the music. In a minute, half a minute, the motley heralds of the fantastic, gorgeous, roaring spectacle would show themselves.
Then the music seemed a trifle less stentorian and, presently becoming more and more subdued, was muffled again by distance. The lion was either losing his pep or retreating. His roar seemed less tremendous—at last he seemed to speak in a kind of aggrieved whisper.
Even the terrible calliope modified its shrieking and discordant tones. It seemed to be receding. Could the Evening Bungle have committed the greatest bungle of all its bungling career and misstated the line of march? Impossible, perish the thought! Where but down the fine, broad thoroughfare of Terrace Avenue would a circus parade make its ostentatious way? The pupils waited, patient, confident, all suspense. The procession had paused....
They waited five, ten, fifteen minutes, till the calliope had ceased entirely to shock the air with its outlandish clamor and the lion had ceased to roar.
Twenty minutes.