Especially memorable was the exciting day
to Johnny Filgee, not only for the delight-
fully bewildering clamor of the brass band,
in which, between the trombone and the bass
drum, he had got inextricably mixed ; not
only for the half-frightening explosions of
the anvils and the maddening smell of the
gunpowder which had exalted his infant soul
to sudden and irrelevant whoopings, but for
a singular occurrence that whetted his always
keen perceptions. Having been shamelessly
abandoned on the veranda of the Eureka
Hotel while his brother Rupert paid bashful
court to the pretty proprietress by assisting
her in her duties, Johnny gave himself up to
unlimited observation. The rosettes of the
six horses, the new harness, the length of the
driver's whiplash, his enormous buckskin
gloves and the way he held his reins ; the
fascinating odor of shining varnish on the
coach, the gold-headed cane of the Honorable
Abner Dean : all these were stored away in
the secret recesses of Johnny's memory, even
as the unconsidered trifles he had picked up
en route were distending his capacious pock-
ets. But when a young man had alighted
from the second or " Truly " coach among
the real passengers, and strolled carelessly



CRESS r. 93

and easily in the veranda as if the novelty
and the occasion were nothing to him, John-
ny, with a gulp of satisfaction, knew that he
had seen a prince ! Beautifully dressed in a
white duck suit, with a diamond ring on his
finger, a gold chain swinging from his fob,
and a Panama hat with a broad black ribbon
jauntily resting on his curled and scented
hair, Johnny's eyes had never rested on a
more resplendent vision. He was more ro-
mantic than Yuba BiU, more imposing and
less impossible than the Honorable Abner
Dean, more eloquent than the master — far
more beautiful than any colored print that
he had ever seen. Had he brushed him in
passing Johnny would have felt a thrill ; had
he spoken to him he knew he would have
been speechless to reply. 