er start,
Andrew?"

"Jist as you like," was the reply. Wee Andra was of too huge
proportions to be moved by any excitement. "There's Mr. Thomas Hayes,
M. P., no less, comin' in at the door now!" he added, stretching his
neck to get a view of the other end of the church and sending a rather
unstable cedar tree and a deluge of flags crashing upon the organ.
"Gosh, I've pulled down the whole shootin' match!"

Mr. Hayes was the Member of Parliament for Glenoro's constituency, as
well as the Burke of the Flats, Oro's Irish settlement. He was the
only orator honoured with an invitation to address the meeting. Mr.
Watson hurried down the aisle to welcome the distinguished visitor,
amid a hail-storm of conversation lozenges. When he had been brought
to the platform and duly honoured everything was in readiness.

Glenoro custom demanded that all such affairs should be opened with
prayer, but in his capacity of chairman, Mr. Watson did not see fit to
call upon either clergyman to perform that ceremony; the programme was
long enough, he reflected, and the praying could be dispensed with
easier than anything else. The audience settled into expectant silence
as Mr. Egerton arose and in a few well-chosen words explained the
double mission of the Patriotic Society, and the aim of its
entertainment. His audience listened attentively, and, judging from
the applause that followed, seemed to be quite in sympathy with the
movement. It is true that some of the babies, not yet old enough to
realise their glorious heritage, occasionally interrupted his remarks,
and one disloyal youth shied a "congregational lozenger" across the
room; but the speaker did not appear at all disturbed.

The programme which followed was one calculated to arouse the most
sluggish soul present. The choir sang quite thrillingly "The Maple
Leaf Forever"; the mouth organ and concertina band played "Upon the
Heights of Queenston" four times through without stopping to take
breath; while the boys at the back of the church kept time vigorously
with their feet. During the performance Sim Basketful made several
ineffectual excursions to that abandoned region to demand order, but
was met by a fusillade of confectionery. Wee Andra roared out "The
Battle of the Baltic" at the top of his prodigious lungs, and was
thunderously encored. The fact that in his exit he once more knocked
over the evergreen tree with its burden of flags detracted not one whit
from eith