arket-lady caracoles around, and leads Browne
to infer that his conduct is not approved, from her festooning that
gentleman's eyes with heavy lines of crape. Mrs. Browne arrives on the
scene. The baby goes into fits. The fast-assembling crowd cry "Shame!"
and Browne, after trying in vain to apologize, seeks the shelter of a
hack and makes good his escape.

He descends at Main street, just in time to observe the man with the
ladder and paint-pot working his way up along. That genius is smashing
in store fronts and dropping paint liberally on the population.
However, as he does this twice a day regularly through the week, it
does not appear to attract much attention, except from strangers.

The fat gentleman who is in training to remove pieces of orange-peel
from the sidewalk has already begun his labor of love for the day.
He is just getting up and dusting himself as Browne goes by. There is
nothing fresh in this either, so Browne does not stop. He merely nods
and hurries on.

That Danbury youth who gets snarled up so badly when he is sent to
do anything, and who has lived through no end of mustard plaster
and other soothing applications, is standing in a doorway whistling.
Browne conceives it to be a capital idea to waylay this boy and
interview him. But, as if divining Browne's purpose, the young hero
gives a war-whoop and dives down a side alley. Browne will write up
the interview just the same, though.

Browne sees something lively now, something Danburian. A fire company
in lobster-colored shirts turn into Main street, aided and abetted by
a brass band hired by the job to play furiously. Browne admires the
gallant firemen as they step along bravely, winking at the pretty
girls on either side--at the machine which glistens in the sun, and
maintains a lively jingling of bells and brass-work as it joggles over
the pavement. "Ah," thinks Browne, "this is gorgeous!" It is. Browne's
instincts are generally correct.

The man who assists in carrying the bass drum has a sore thumb,
a sensitively sore thumb. Nothing more natural, when Sherman goes
"marching through Georgia," than that this thumb should come in for a
share of attention. The bang it gets sends the acutest pain running up
and down its owner's spine. In a frenzy (in a moment, we may say, of
emotional insanity) he draws a tomahawk and buries it in the head of
the captain of that bass drum. The infuriated musician, supposing it
to be the cornet who has mutini