nootful already--his
face has turned black!"

"The whole crowd has turned black," said the cartoonist, almost falling
off his perch in a frantic effort to see more clearly through the olive
haze that filled the street.

It was true. Above the thousands of white figures, as they emerged from
the intoxicating cloud-bank of gooseberry gas, grinned ghastly,
inhuman, blackened faces, with staring goggle eyes. The Bishop was most
frightful of all. His horse was prancing and swaying wildly, and the
Bishop's transformed features were diabolic. His whole profile had
altered, seemed black and shapeless as the face of a tadpole. The
amazing truth burst upon Bleak. Chuff and his paraders were wearing
gas-masks. These were what they had carried in their knapsacks.
Indomitable Chuff, who had foreseen everything!

"Poor Quimbleton," said Bleak. "This will break his heart!"

"His neck too, I fancy," said one of the others, pointing to the sky,
and indeed one of the three planes was seen falling tragically to earth
behind the tower of the City Hall.

The cloud of gas was rapidly drifting off down the Boulevard, and
through the exhilarating and delicious fog the Pan-Antis waved their
defiant banners unscathed. The progress of the parade, however, was
halted by the behavior of the Bishop's horse, for which no mask had
been provided. The noble animal, under this sudden and extraordinary
stimulus, was almost human in its actions. At first it stood,
whinneying sharply, and pawing the air with one forefoot--as though
feeling for the brass rail, as one of Bleak's companions said. It
raised its head proudly, with open mouth and expanded nostrils. Then,
dashing off across the broad street, it seemed eager to climb a
lamp-post, and only the fierce restraint of the Bishop held it in. One
of the chuffs (perhaps only lukewarm in loyalty), ran up and offered to
give his mask to the horse, but was sternly motioned back to the ranks
by the infuriated leader, who was wildly wrestling to gain control of
the exuberant animal. At last the horse solved the problem by lying
down in the street, on top of the Bishop, and going to sleep. An
ambulance, marked Federal Home for Inebriates, Cana, N.J., dashed up
with shrilling gong. This had been arranged by Quimbleton, who had
wired a requisition for an ambulance to remove one intoxicated bishop.
As the Bishop was quite in command of his faculties, the horse, after
some delay, was hoisted into the ambulance