A window opened above the shop, and a frowsty-looking man, yellow-pale, was quickly and nervously hauling in the national flag.  There were shouts of derision and mockery—­a great overtone of acrid derision—­the flag and its owner ignominiously disappeared.  And the procession moved on.  Almost every shop had a flag flying.  And every one of these flags now disappeared, quickly or slowly, sooner or later, in obedience to the command of the vicious, derisive crowd, that marched and clotted slowly down the street, having its own way.

Only one flag remained flying—­the big tricolour that floated from the top storey of the house opposite Aaron’s hotel.  The ground floor of this house consisted of shop-premises—­now closed.  There was no sign of any occupant.  The flag floated inert aloft.

The whole crowd had come to a stop immediately below the hotel, and all were now looking up at the green and white and red tricolour which stirred damply in the early evening light, from under the broad eaves of the house opposite.  Aaron looked at the long flag, which drooped almost unmoved from the eaves-shadow, and he half expected it to furl itself up of its own accord, in obedience to the will of the masses.  Then he looked down at the packed black shoulders of the mob below, and at the curious clustering pattern of a sea of black hats.  He could hardly see anything but hats and shoulders, uneasily moving like boiling pitch away beneath him.  But the shouts began to come up hotter and hotter.  There had been a great ringing of a door-bell and battering on the shop-door.  The crowd—­the swollen head of the procession—­talked and shouted, occupying the centre of the street, but leaving the pavement clear.  A woman in a white blouse appeared in the shop-door.  She came out and looked up at the flag and shook her head and gesticulated with her hands.  It was evidently not her flag—­she had nothing to do with it.  The leaders again turned to the large house-door, and began to ring all the bells and to knock with their knuckles.  But no good—­there was no answer.  They looked up again at the flag.  Voices rose ragged and ironical.  The woman explained something again.  Apparently there was nobody at home in the upper floors—­all entrance was locked—­there was no caretaker.  Nobody owned the flag.  There it hung under the broad eaves of the strong stone house, and didn’t even know that it was guilty.  The woman went back into her shop and drew down the iron shutter from inside.

The crowd, nonplussed, now began to argue and shout and whistle.  The voices rose in pitch and derision.  Steam was getting up.  There hung the flag.  The procession crowded forward and filled the street in a mass below.  All the rest of the street was empty and shut up.  And still hung the showy rag, red and white and green, up aloft.