Deeply ignoring this, I resume my elocutionary studies of the
Declaration of Independence. For I should say that a signal honour of
a municipal character has just been done me. A committee of the
Chamber of Commerce has invited me to participate in their exercises
on an early day in July--the fourth, I fancy--when they celebrate the
issuance of this famous document. I have been asked to read it,
preceding a patriotic address to be made by Senator Floud.
I accepted with the utmost pleasure, and now on my vine-sheltered
porch have begun trying it out for the proper voice effects. Its
substance, I need not say, is already familiar to me.
The nipper is horribly gulping at its food, jam smears quite all about
its countenance. Mrs. Ruggles glances over her journal.
"How would you like it," she suddenly demands, "if I went around town
like these English women--burning churches and houses of Parliament
and cutting up fine oil paintings. How would that suit your grouchy
highness?"
"This is not England," I answer shortly. "That sort of thing would
never do with us."
"My, but isn't he the fierce old Ruggums!" she cries in affected alarm
to the now half-suffocated nipper.
Once more I take up the Declaration of Independence. It lends itself
rather well to reciting.
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