To say that the bulk of these had been attracted to those shadeless precincts by a display of roses would be too polite a compliment. The Blackhampton Prize Brass Band was the undoubted magnet of the many. Then there were tea al fresco for the ladies, a baby show and a beauty competition, beer and bowls for the gentlemen, dancing to follow and also fireworks. When the Show was considered in all its aspects, the roses only appealed to a small minority; the roses in fact were hardly more than a pretext for a local saturnalia, but in the middle of the sward was a large tent wherein the competing blooms were displayed. Close by was a tent considerably less in size if intrinsically the more imposing, to which a square piece of cardboard was attached by a blue ribbon. It bore the legend "President and Committee." At the entrance to this smaller tent a number of important looking but perspiring gentlemen were seated in a semicircle on garden chairs. And in the center of these, with rather the air of Jupiter among his satellites, was Mr. Josiah Munt. Several members of the committee, all badged and rosetted as they were, had removed their coats out of deference to the thermometer, but the President was not of these. Under the famous white pot hat, which in the southeastern district of his native city was as famous as the Gladstone collar and the Chamberlain eyeglass, was artfully disposed a cool cabbage leaf, and over all was a large white sun umbrella. The sun umbrella marked a precedent. It was a symbol, a herald of the President's ever advancing social status. All the same it was not allowed to mar a certain large geniality with which he always bore himself at the Rose Show. By nature the proprietor of the Duke of Wellington was not an expansive man, particularly in the world of affairs, but once a year, at least, he made a point of unbending as far as it was in him to do so. This afternoon the President was accessible to all and sundry as of yore. Moreover he had followed his time-honored custom of regaling the committee, most of whom were "substantial men" and the cronies of an earlier, more primitive phase in the ascending fortunes of the future mayor of the city, with whisky and cigars, conveyed specially from the Duke of Wellington by George the head barman. But it was clear as the afternoon advanced and the heat increased with the ever-growing throng, that the subject of roses and even the martial strains of Rule Britannia, Hearts of Oak and other accepted masterpieces rendered with amazing _brio_ by the B.P.B.B. did not wholly occupy the thoughts of these distinguished men.