"Yes, they fought for freedom, that's true. And what are the Cubapinos fighting for?" asked the young man.
"Oh, shucks!" cried Reddy. "I ain't a-going to argher with you. What were we talking about? Oh, yes. We were saying that them societies fight together. They do fight a good deal, that's a fact, and there's no end of trouble in our militia battalion too. They all want to be captain, and they don't get on somehow as well as the fire companies. But still it's a fine thing to see all this military spirit. I didn't see a uniform for years, and now you can't hire a man to dig a ditch who hasn't got a stripe on one leg of his trousers at any rate. Girls like soldiers, I tell you, and they like pensions too. I've just got married myself. My wife is seventeen. Now I've drawed my pension for nearly forty years, and she'll draw it for sixty more if she has any luck; that'll make over a hundred. That's something like. Why, if one of these fellows is twenty now and marries a girl of seventeen when he's ninety, and she lives till she's ninety, they can keep drawing money for a hundred and fifty years, and no mistake. It's better than a savings bank. Here they come!"
The procession had formed round the corner at the other end of the main street, and now the band began to play, and the column could be seen advancing. First the band passed with an escort of small boys running along in the gutter on either side. Then came two carriages containing the heroes, two in each. They held themselves stiffly and took off their hats, and no one would have supposed that they had drunk too much if the fact had not been universally understood by the public. Behind them came a line of other carriages in which were seated the magnates of the town, including the office-holders and the prominent business men. They all had that self-important air which is inseparable from such shows and which denotes that the individual is feeling either like a great man or a fool. Then came the militia battalion, a rather shamefaced lot of young men who seemed to be painfully aware that they were not at all real heroes like the soldiers in the carriages, but merely make-believe imitations. The patriotic societies followed, genuine and non-genuine, resplendent in "insignia," sashes, and badges.