They would have been a relief.There was the monotonous aldermanic row,and the worse than hopeless little herd of aldermen,the weird agricultural portion of whom came in on council days in white starched and ironed coats,as we had always remembered them.
They were aggressively barren of ideas;but on this occasion they had risen above themselves,for one of them had remembered something his grandfather (old time English alderman)had told him,and they were stirring up all the old local quarrels and family spite of the district over a motion,or an amendment on a motion,that a letter --from another enlightened body and bearing on an equally important matter (which letter had been sent through the post sufficiently stamped,delivered to the secretary,handed to the chairman,read aloud in council,and passed round several times for private perusal)--over a motion that such letter be received.
There was a maintenance case coming on --to the usual well-ventilated disgust of the local religious crank,who was on the jury;but the case differed in no essential point from other cases which were always coming on and going off in my time.It was not at all romantic.The local youth was not even brilliant in adultery.
After I had been a week in that town the Governor decided to visit it,and preparations were made to welcome him and present him with an address.
Then I thought that it was time to go,and slipped away unnoticed in the general lunacy.