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The reception extended to him there is still remembered by the ambassador as one of the happiest incidents of his distinguished career. Never since he came to represent his imperial Majesty in the Western republic had its barbarians greeted him in a manner in any way so nearly approaching his own idea of what was his due.

“This ambassador,” Hines had explained to the mayor of Stillwater, who was also the proprietor of its largest department store, “is the personal representative of the Sultan. So we’ve got to treat him right.”

“It’s exactly,” added Stetson, “as though the Sultan himself were coming.”

“And so few crowned heads visit Stillwater,” continued Hines, “that we ought to show we appreciate this one, especially as he comes to pay the highest honor known to Europe to one of our townsmen.”

The mayor chewed nervously on his cigar.

“What’d I better do?” he asked.

“Mr. Stetson here,” Hines pointed out, “has lived in Turkey, and he knows what they expect. Maybe he will help us.”

“Will you?” begged the mayor.

“I will,” said Stetson.

Then they visited the college authorities. Chancellor Black and most of the faculty were on their vacations. But there were half a dozen professors still in their homes around the campus, and it was pointed out to them that the coming honor to one lately of their number reflected glory upon the college and upon them, and that they should take official action.

It was also suggested that for photographic purposes they should wear their academic robes, caps, and hoods. To these suggestions, with alacrity–partly because they all loved Doctor Gilman and partly because they had never been photographed by a moving-picture machine–they all agreed. So it came about that when the ambassador, hot and cross and dusty stepped off the way-train at Stillwater station he found to his delighted amazement a red carpet stretching to a perfectly new automobile, a company of the local militia presenting arms, a committee, consisting of the mayor in a high hat and white gloves and three professors in gowns and colored hoods, and the Stillwater silver Cornet Band playing what, after several repetitions, the ambassador was graciously pleased to recognize as his national anthem.

The ambassador forgot that he was hot and cross. He forgot that he was dusty. His face radiated satisfaction and perspiration. Here at last were people who appreciated him and his high office. And as the mayor helped him into the automobile, and those students who lived in Stillwater welcomed him with strange yells, and the moving-picture machine aimed at him point blank, he beamed with condescension. But inwardly he was ill at ease.

Inwardly he was chastising himself for having, through his ignorance of America, failed to appreciate the importance of the man he had come to honor. When he remembered he had never even heard of Doctor Gilman he blushed with confusion. And when he recollected that he had been almost on the point of refusing to come to Stillwater, that he had considered leaving the presentation to his secretary, he shuddered. What might not the Sultan have done to him! What a narrow escape!

Attracted by the band, by the sight of their fellow townsmen in khaki, by the sight of the stout gentleman in the red fez, by a tremendous liking and respect for Doctor Gilman, the entire town of Stillwater gathered outside his cottage. And inside, the old professor, trembling and bewildered and yet strangely happy, bowed his shoulders while the ambassador slipped over them the broad green scarf and upon his only frock coat pinned the diamond sunburst. In woeful embarrassment Doctor Gilman smiled and bowed and smiled, and then, as the delighted mayor of Stillwater shouted, “Speech,” in sudden panic he reached out his hand quickly and covertly, and found the hand of his wife.

“Now, then, three Long ones!” yelled the cheer leader. “Now, then, ‘See the Conquering Hero!'” yelled the bandmaster. “Attention! Present arms!” yelled the militia captain; and the townspeople and the professors applauded and waved their hats and handkerchiefs. And Doctor Gilman and his wife, he frightened and confused, she happy and proud, and taking it all as a matter of course, stood arm in arm in the frame of honeysuckles and bowed and bowed and bowed. And the ambassador so far unbent as to drink champagne, which appeared mysteriously in tubs of ice from the rear of the ivy-covered cottage, with the mayor, with the wives of the professors, with the students, with the bandmaster. Indeed, so often did he unbend that when the perfectly new automobile conveyed him back to the Touraine, he was sleeping happily and smiling in his sleep.