The adjournment made the policeman's opportunity. Stiffly lifting his hat, as if the action were itself part of bureaucratic automatism, he challenged a lay brother on the oratory steps and proceeded to interview him on the cause of the crowd. Apparently the lay brother worsted him, for at the end of the colloquy he was so far humbled as simply to send me his card, with the modest request to know if I were a noble, as in that case he wished to salute me properly; to which I returned mine with the reply that I was not a noble, but an American, and therefore only the sixty-millionth part of a sovereign, and left him to figure out the respect due in so complicated a case.
The occasion, however, soon had a humanizing effect even upon his officialdom, so that he shortly grew quite tame and accepted at the hands of the lay brother a seat upon the platform beside us.
Meanwhile the priests were busy with prayers and finger-charms on the mats at the foot of the ladder, and when enough of them had been repeated there took place a solemn walk-round by the whole company about the staging.
