Tremendous Trifles

The Mystery of a Pageant

Once upon a time, it seems centuries ago, I was prevailed on to take

a small part in one of those historical processions or pageants

which happened to be fashionable in or about the year 1909.

And since I tend, like all who are growing old, to re-enter

the remote past as a paradise or playground, I disinter a memory

which may serve to stand among those memories of small but strange

incidents with which I have sometimes filled this column.

The thing has really some of the dark qualities of a detective-story;

though I suppose that Sherlock Holmes himself could hardly unravel

it now, when the scent is so old and cold and most of the actors,

doubtless, long dead.

This old pageant included a series of figures from the eighteenth century,

and I was told that I was just like Dr. Johns