The cloud of gas was rapidly drifting off down the Boulevard, and through the exhilarating and delicious fog the Pan-Antis waved their defiant banners unscathed.  The progress of the parade, however, was halted by the behavior of the Bishop’s horse, for which no mask had been provided.  The noble animal, under this sudden and extraordinary stimulus, was almost human in its actions.  At first it stood, whinneying sharply, and pawing the air with one forefoot—­as though feeling for the brass rail, as one of Bleak’s companions said.  It raised its head proudly, with open mouth and expanded nostrils.  Then, dashing off across the broad street, it seemed eager to climb a lamp-post, and only the fierce restraint of the Bishop held it in.  One of the chuffs (perhaps only lukewarm in loyalty), ran up and offered to give his mask to the horse, but was sternly motioned back to the ranks by the infuriated leader, who was wildly wrestling to gain control of the exuberant animal.  At last the horse solved the problem by lying down in the street, on top of the Bishop, and going to sleep.  An ambulance, marked Federal Home for Inebriates, Cana, N.J., dashed up with shrilling gong.  This had been arranged by Quimbleton, who had wired a requisition for an ambulance to remove one intoxicated bishop.  As the Bishop was quite in command of his faculties, the horse, after some delay, was hoisted into the ambulance instead.  The Bishop was given a dusting, and the parade proceeded.  The self-control of the police alone averted prolonged and frightful disorder, for when the conduct of the horse was observed thousands of spectators fought desperately to get through the ropes and out into the fumes that still lingered in wisps and whorls of green vapor.  Others tore off their coats and attempted to bag a few cubic inches of the gas in these garments.  But the police, with a devotion to duty that was beyond praise, kept the mob in check and themselves bore the brunt of the lingering acid.  Only one man, who leaped from an office-window with an improvised parachute, really succeeded in getting into the middle of the Boulevard, and he refused to be ejected on the ground that he was chief of the street-cleaning department.  This department, by the way, was given a remarkable illustration of the fine public spirit of the citizens, for by three o’clock in the afternoon two hundred thousand applications had been received from those eager to act as volunteer street-cleaners and help scour the Boulevard after the passage of the great parade.

CHAPTER IV

THE GREAT WAR BEGINS