Behind him, Julius Arthur (Macbeth), drew his sword with a flourish.
“I challenge you, Hal,” said he.
In the young shimmering light their tin swords clashed rapidly. Twittered with young bird-laughter, on bank and saddle sprawled, all of the Bard’s personæ. Julius Arthur thrust swiftly, was warded, then, with loose grin, buried his brand suddenly in “Doc” Hines’receiving paunch. The company of the immortal shrieked happily.
Miss Ida Nelson, the assistant director, rushed angrily among them.
“Sh!” she hissed loudly. “Sh-h!” She was very angry. She had spent the afternoon hissing loudly.
Swinging gently in her side-saddle, Rosalind, on horseback, a ripe little beauty from the convent, smiled warmly at him. Looking, he forgot.
Below them, on the road, the crowded press loosened slowly, broke off in minute fragments, and disappeared into the hidden gulch of Dr. George Rockham’s receiving voice. With fat hammy sonority he welcomed them.
But he had not come to Shakespeare. The pageant had opened with the Voices of Past and Present—voices a trifle out of harmony with the tenor of event—but necessary to the commercial success of the enterprise. These voices now moved voicelessly past—four frightened sales-ladies from Schwartzberg’s, clad decently in cheese-cloth and sandals, who came by bearing the banner of their concern. Or, as the doctor’s more eloquent iambics had it:
"Fair Commerce, sister of the arts, thou, too, Shalt take thy lawful place upon our stage."
They came and passed: Ginsberg’s—“the glass of fashion and the mould of form”; Bradley the Grocer—“when first Pomona held her fruity horn”; The Buick Agency—“the chariots of Oxus and of Ind.”
Came, passed—like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream.
Behind them, serried ranks of cherubim, the marshalled legions of Altamont’s Sunday schools, each in white arrayed and clutching
