Silently the two boys and Julius Caesar awaited the raising of the flags
over Honolulu. Could they or could they not let off their firecrackers?
They might as well, said Cocoanut, be getting ready, anyhow, and so he
began tying strings of firecrackers together, adjusting cannon crackers
at intervals between the smaller ones, and adding Billy's string of
crackers to his own. When completed there were just thirty-seven and
one-half feet of firecrackers of variegated quality. Billy looked on
listlessly, and Cocoanut himself hardly knew why he was making this
arrangement. The sun bounced up out of the ocean, a great red ball
behind the thin fog, and bunting climbed the flagstaffs of Honolulu.
With eager eyes the boys gazed cityward until the moment when the breeze
had straightened out the flags and the device upon them could be seen.
Then they looked upon each other blankly. It was not the Stars and
Stripes, but the Hawaiian flag which floated there below them!

They didn't know what to do, these poor boys who wanted to be patriots
that morning and couldn't. They sat down disconsolately near to the
heels of Julius Caesar, who was whisking his stubby tail about
occasionally in vengeful search of an occasional fly. It chanced that in
the midst of this he slapped Cocoanut across the face, and that Cocoanut
incontinently grabbed the tail, to keep it from further demonstration of
the sort. Julius Caesar did not kick at this, because it was too
trifling a matter. Far better would it have been for Julius Caesar had
he kicked then and there, but the relation of why comes later on. Lost
in their sorrows, Cocoanut and Billy communed together, and Cocoanut, in
the forgetfulness of deep reflection began plaiting together the end of
the string of firecrackers and the hairs in the tail of Julius Caesar.
He was a good plaiter, was Cocoanut--they do such work with grasses and
things in and about Honolulu, and lots of little Hawaiians are good
plaiters--and it may be said of the job that when completed, although
done almost unconsciously, it was a good one. That string of
thirty-seven and one-half feet of firecrackers was not going to leave
the tail of that little jackass except under most extraordinary
circumstances.

A fly of exceptional vigor assaulted Julius Caesar upon the flank, and
his tail not whisking as well as usual, because of the incumbrance, he
missed the enemy at the first swish and moved uneasily forward for
several fee