instead. The Bishop was
given a dusting, and the parade proceeded. The self-control of the
police alone averted prolonged and frightful disorder, for when the
conduct of the horse was observed thousands of spectators fought
desperately to get through the ropes and out into the fumes that still
lingered in wisps and whorls of green vapor. Others tore off their
coats and attempted to bag a few cubic inches of the gas in these
garments. But the police, with a devotion to duty that was beyond
praise, kept the mob in check and themselves bore the brunt of the
lingering acid. Only one man, who leaped from an office-window with an
improvised parachute, really succeeded in getting into the middle of
the Boulevard, and he refused to be ejected on the ground that he was
chief of the street-cleaning department. This department, by the way,
was given a remarkable illustration of the fine public spirit of the
citizens, for by three o'clock in the afternoon two hundred thousand
applications had been received from those eager to act as volunteer
street-cleaners and help scour the Boulevard after the passage of the
great parade.

CHAPTER IV

THE GREAT WAR BEGINS

As the echoes of the parade died away, public excitement was roused to
fever by the discovery that evening of an infernal machine in the City
Hall. Leaning against one of the great marble pillars in the lobby of
the building, a gleaming object (looking very much like a four-inch
shrapnel shell) was found by a vigilant patrolman. To his horror he
found it to be one of the much-dreaded thermos bottles. Experts from
the Bureau of Rumbustibles were summoned, and the bomb was carefully
analyzed. Much to the disappointment of the chief inspector, the
devilish ingredients of the explosive had been spoiled by immersion in
a pail of water, so his examination was purely theoretical; but it was
plain that the leading component of this hellish mixture had been
nothing less than gin, animated by a fuse of lemon-peel. If the
cylinder had exploded, unquestionably every occupant of the City Hall
would have been intoxicated.

The conduct of the municipal officials in this crisis was extremely
courageous. No one knew whether other articles of this kind might not
be concealed about the building, but the Mayor and councilmen refused
to go home, and even assisted in the search for possible bombs. Secret
service men were called from Washington, and went into consultation
with Bishop C