This was as easily done as said; they simply applied their wicks to the lighted wick of the next good-natured man whom they met--and good nature was everywhere to-night--and now, with torches blazing, they were fully in trim for the parade.
The procession was forming. On horseback marshals, distinguished by a sash passing from one shoulder diagonally across the chest and under the opposite arm, dashed up, and wheeled and dashed down again. Horns gave preliminary, erratic toots, and drums broke in with sudden rolls. Flambeaux flamed forth, and died out. Transparencies bobbed hither and thither, upon invisible legs. Marching clubs stood at ease, while their members jested and waited. The air was filled with kerosene smoke and echoing voices.
Ned and Hal, holding their heads stiffly lest their caps should tumble off, and wrapped in their blue capes like a cattle-man in his poncho, sped to the corner mentioned by _The Clarion_ as the meeting place of the "unattached." Here had gathered about fifty other blue capes and red caps, and the number was slowly being swelled.
"Hi there!" hailed a marshal, spurring to them. "You men close in, in column of fours, on the rear of the procession, as it passes by."
Off he tore again, while Ned and Hal felt not a little elated at having been classed among the "men."
The parade started. Drums commenced to beat time, bands commenced to play, and forth into the surrounding darkness flowed a little stream of lights as if the sea of torches had sprung a-leak, and was trickling down the street.
Hal and Ned had a good view of the make-up of the procession; but they were impatient to become, themselves, a part of it, and fretted at the delay.
"There comes the last!" exclaimed a self-appointed leader. "Get ready, four abreast!"
In the confusion caused by forming some semblance of ranks, the two boys found themselves elbowed aside by tall men who didn't want to be made to look ridiculous, and by short men who didn't wish to be classed with "kids," and by medium sized men who evidently never had been boys--and finally, when the whole had been divided by four, Ned and Hal found themselves sifted back to the rear, as remainders!
Nobody seemed to notice them or their plight. For a moment they were dismayed.