Meanwhile, the people listened with an air of patience, yawning here and there, and gradually growing fewer.

It was the old, old usual thing, made up of phrases that Ramsey had heard dinning away on a thousand such occasions, and other kinds of occasions, until they meant to him no more than so much sound.

He was bored, and glad to leave.
"Kind o' funny," he said, as they sagged along the street at their usual tortoise gait.
"What is it, Ramsey ?" "Seems kind o' funny they never have anything to say any one can take any interest in.

Always the same ole whoopety-whoop about George Washington and Pilgrim Fathers and so on.

I bet five dollars before long we'd of heard him goin' on about our martyred Presidents, William McKinley and James A.Garfield and Benjamin Harrison and all so on, and then some more about the ole Red, White, and Blue.