We come now to the morning of the great day.  Everything had been finally settled.  The Mayor and Aldermen, Lady Fenimore and the Aldermen’s wives, the Lord Lieutenant (in unofficial mufti) and Lady Laleham (great though officially obscure lady), the General of the Division quartered in the neighbourhood and officers of his staff, and a few other magnates to meet the three o’clock train by which the Boyces were due to arrive.  The station hung with flags and inscriptions.  A guard of honour and a band in the station-yard, with a fleet of motor cars in waiting.  Troops lining the route from station to Town Hall.  More troops in the decorated Market Square, including the Godbury School O.T.C. and the Wellingsford and Godbury Volunteers.  I heard that the latter were very anxious to fire off a feu de joie, but were restrained owing to lack of precedent.  The local fire-brigade in freshly burnished helmets were to follow the procession of motor cars, and behind them motor omnibuses with the nurses.

Marigold, although his attendance on me precluded him from taking part in the parade of Volunteers, appeared in full grey uniform with all his medals and the black patch of ceremony over his eyeless socket.  I must confess to regarding him with some jealousy.  I too should have liked to wear my decorations.  If a man swears to you that he is free from such little vanities, he is more often than not a mere liar.  But a broken-down old soldier, although still drawing pay from the Government, is not allowed to wear uniform (which I think is outrageous), and he can’t go and plaster himself with medals when he is wearing on his head a hard felt hat.  My envy of the martial looking Marigold is a proof that my mind was not busied with sterner preoccupations.  I ate my breakfast with the serene conscience not only of a man who knows he has done his duty, but of an organiser confident in the success of his schemes.  The abominable weather of snows and tempests from which we had suffered for weeks had undergone a change.  It was a mild morning brightened by a pale convalescent sort of sun, and there was just a little hope of spring in the air.  I felt content with everything and everybody.

About eleven o’clock the buzz of the library telephone disturbed my comfortable perusal of the newspaper.  I wheeled towards the instrument.  Sir Anthony was speaking.

“Can you come round at once?  Very urgent.  The car is on its way to you.”

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

He could not tell me over the wires.  I was to take it that my presence was urgently needed.

“I’ll come along at once,” said I.

Some hitch doubtless had occurred.  Perhaps the War Office (whose ways were ever weird and unaccountable) had forbidden the General to take part in such a village-pump demonstration.  Perhaps Lady Laleham had insisted on her husband coming down like a uniformed Lord Lieutenant on the fold.  Perhaps the hero himself was laid up with measles.