Page:Arthur Stringer-The Loom of Destiny.djvu/41

The Fly in the Ointment, pipe-clay his leggings while he talked of the "Chur-r-rch Par-r-ade a' Sabbath week."

But still he faltered. He could not get the thought of those green eyes out of his mind. Then, all of a sudden, far up the street, he caught a glimpse of bonnets and kilts. Bonnets and kilts! And Scotland half a world away! It was a sight for sore eves, if those same eyes had once seen the hills and valleys of the Highlands. After one furtive glance down his own little street, the carefully folded lesson leaf was flung into the gutter, and he was piking up the avenue as fast as his thin legs could carry him. He headed them off in six blocks, and fell in, panting and perspiring, with the Victoria Rifles Band. One or two of the soldiers kicked him surreptitiously, but he did not even know it. He was following the band! The blood that throbbed through his thin legs had never run so fast. He was drunk, dead drunk, with the music. Thrills went coursing up and down his backbone, and he seemed to be walking on air. How or why it was he could not understand; but on and 29