when the latter tried to make friends with him he always turned away.
“A silent madman!” they repeated throughout the village. “Poor fellow! His grief went to his head. And no wonder!”
“But what will it be when he sees the celebration of the school consecration?”
“He won’t see it! He’ll lock himself in his room and won’t crawl out.”
The great day of the school consecration arrived. The factory proprietor, Schlosser, exerted every effort to arrange a big celebration. He distributed an immense number of flags throughout the community, mainly the black-and-yellow emblem, but also a few red-and-white ones. He himself went from house to house. He promised the parish priest to secure funds for alterations on the church. He gave his word to the mayor that he would personally be responsible for the repair of the public highways, which improvement the citizens had been unable to secure from the county directors. To others he gave promises of this or that sort, to the doubters he gave ready money, but to his factory employees he merely gave orders to be on hand.
Schlosser had determined that he must triumph in vauntingly ostentatious fashion over the obstinate old Czech. And he did triumph.
On the day of the celebration the entire village, with the exception of a few out-and-out old-fashioned Czechs, was all rejoicing and excitement from early dawn. Be
