Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/128

 white gauze who dove through tissue-paper hoops and alighted so birdlike on the crupper of an Orloff stallion, really traveled in the midst of such dust and bustle and noisy profanity.

And the mad stir and bustle kept up; attendants herded back too inquisitive boys, the city of canvas grew on the air as at the touch of unseen magicians, the banners were loosed and floated with holiday flutter and abandon, the eight and ten-teamed wagons swung ponderously and prancingly out for the procession, the musicians took their seats in the great high blue-and-white band-wagon, as haughty as the deck of a Spanish galleon, and already the more knowing ones were trailing townward, to behold the full pageant at its earliest point, and as often thereafter as nimble legs and a sadly overtaxed second-wind would permit.

It was at this juncture that a sudden halt came to the proceedings. The man from the little office-wagon was seen to run over to the great blue-and-gold float of the Goddess of Liberty. La Belle Leona, the Queen of the Air, and also one of the four pages who held up the voluminous skirts of the resplendent