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Every few hundred yards they were halted and subjected to curt inquiry. Men and women who had heard of their gallant struggle against fearful odds pressed forward in an attempt to seize their hands, to embrace and applaud them, but these evidences of enthusiasm were sternly repressed by the chuffs. Bleak was frankly nervous as they approached the Chuff Building.
"I am Miss Chuff," she said calmly. The editor's brain staggered. "Miss Theodolinda Chuff?" he said, in amazement. He recalled some satirical editorials the Balloon had printed concerning the activities of the Chuffs, and wondered if he were being kidnaped for court-martial by the Pan-Antis. Evidently the use of Quimbleton's name had been a ruse.
Miss Chuff shuddered, quivered, and opened her eyes with a tragic gasp. She slipped from the chair, and fell exhausted to the floor. Bleak ran to pick her up. Quimbleton screamed out an oath. "The spell is broken!" he roared. "There's a spy in the room!" At that instant a battalion of armed chuffs burst into the hall.
At the same instant the other two planes, throbbing down the line of the parade, discharged a rain of similar projectiles along the vacant strip of paving between the marching chuffs and the police-lined curb. An eddying emerald fume filled the street, drifting with the brisk air down through all the ranks of the procession. There were shouts and screams; the clanging bands squawked discordantly.
Then her eyes turned to the West. To the mixed mob which had rushed from the Norddeutscher Lloyd at Suez, leaving the great liner to the wise few, while perspiring and querulous, and altogether unpleasant, they had filled the little train which chuffs its way along the edge of the canal to Ismailiah, and through the dust and fly-laden miles to Cairo, where it turns its burden out to clamour and argue vociferously with the wily dragoman who would take a herd of elephants to "do" the Pyramids in one hour if the backsheesh proved substantial enough.
The flags were spelling WHAT A DAY FOR A DRINK! All down the Boulevard the white and gold banners tossed in anger. To those above, the mass of agitated chuffs looked like a field of daisies in a wind. Shortly afterward the familiar buzz of airplane motors was heard, and three silver-gray machines came coasting above the channel of the Boulevard.
The dusty highway was stained with ghastly rivulets and dribbles of scarlet juices. At a crossroads they came upon a group of chuffs who had shown themselves to be conscientious objectors: these were being escorted to an internment camp where they would be horribly punished by confinement to lecture rooms with Chautauqua lecturers. War is always cruel, and even non-combatants did not escape.
This, of course, had thrown Dunraven Bleak out of a job. He had retrieved his wife and children from the seashore, and in company with Quimbleton and Miss Chuff, and the noble and faithful horse John Barleycorn, they had led a nomad existence for weeks, flying from bands of pursuing chuffs, and bravely preaching their illicit gospel of good cheer in the face of terrible dangers.
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