“It wouldn’t hurt my feelings a great lot,” she retorted. “It’s only because ‘blood is thicker than water,’ and because you’re my only sister’s son, that I want you to be the ranking officer; but if you don’t deserve the honor I hope to goodness you won’t get it!” She consulted her watch and continued: “Well, I must be off. I’ll leave you boys to see that that flag is properly raised. Good-bye, both of you!” She gave hurried directions to her driver, the car moved forward, and, with a final wave of her hand, she disappeared up the street down which she had so recently come. The procession had passed by, the soldiers were standing at the foot of the staff at “parade rest,” and the band had already begun to play the opening number of the programme when the two boys, pushing their way through the crowd, reached more nearly the center of activity. Following the music there came an invocation by a local clergyman and a brief address by the mayor. Then the young girls, dressed in white, charged with the duty of actually raising the flag, came forward to perform their patriotic task. Assisted by the chairman of the flag committee, they fastened the colors securely to the halyards and awaited the order to begin hoisting. The company bugler sounded to the color, and the band struck into the first chord of The Star-Spangled Banner. Some one shouted: “Hats off!” and immediately the hat or cap of every man and boy in the assemblage came from his head, the hat or cap of every man and boy save one. Immediately back of Ben and Hal stood a black-haired, dark-eyed young man, apparently of foreign birth or descent. His hat did not come off. He was fairly well dressed, he bore marks of intelligence if not of culture, and there appeared to be no reason why he should not join the rest of the company in doing honor to the national anthem and the national flag. Moreover, from his easy manner and confident look, it soon became apparent that he acted, or failed to act, not from ignorance or inadvertence, but from deliberate choice. “Take off your hat!” said a man standing beside him. “Why should I take off my hat?” he replied. “Because they’re playing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ and they’re raising the flag, you fool!” The young man with the covered head did not appear to resent the uncomplimentary remark, but he made no move which might have been interpreted as an intention to obey the order that had been given to him. The two boys had already turned to face the speakers. People in the vicinity who, by reason of the band’s music, had failed to hear what had been said, yet knowing that a quarrel was beginning, began to move toward the immediate scene of the controversy. The defiant young man regarded them with cool indifference. “The flag which they raise,” he said, “stands too much for the injustice and the wrong, that I should honor it.” The man who had protested grew red in the face.