RECEPTIONS OF COOK AND PEARY 185 



After three hours it was decided not to tax him further, al- 

 though not a quarter of those waiting their turn outside had been 

 admitted. The doors of the club house were closed and a thor- 

 oughly tired and rather frayed citizen took off his classic gar- 

 lands and sat down to his first meal on his native soil in two and 

 a half years. 



In an interval of the dinner Dr. Cook went out on one of the 

 balconies of the club house, with the flags and streamers that 

 swung from the gables of the building to the boxed bay trees on 

 the sidewalk flapping in his face, and a handful of friends and 

 relatives around him as he looked down on the crowd that eddied 

 out across the street, stretched a block in each direction along 

 Bushwick avenue and blocked the throat of Hart street as far as 

 the Japanese lanterns along the parkings lighted the way. 



When he came to the rail of the balcony there was a blowing 

 of horns and a banging of tin pans that sounded like an election 

 night and a Coney Island Mardi Gras rolled into one. 



Directly below him were the 500 members of the United Sing- 

 ers of Brooklyn, who had come to serenade him, and in and 

 around the club house, which is a little way from Dr. Cook's 

 home, were jammed his neighbors and the other people who had 

 squirmed through the police lines to welcome him home. 



For a while he stood there bowing and smiling that smile that 

 seems to have become more a matter of habit than a sign of pleas- 

 ure, and then he opened his mouth to speak. The hubbub kept 

 going with even more vigor than before. Then he smiled a real 

 smile as he realized that it was a hopeless task to try to talk to 

 that crowd. 



A second attempt was no more successful, but by the time a 

 third was made the efforts of the club members, who were waving 

 their arms for silence and uttering sounds which were calculated 

 to still the noise of the over-enthusiastic, succeeded in producing 

 an appreciable lull in the immediate vicinity of the club house, 

 and Dr. Cook spoke as follows: 



