"Let him—let the old blid do it," said John Prout under his breath. "Might be a gracious act. He couldn't mar it, if he said nought."
Mr. Spry also whispered into the chairman's ear.
"Does he bear himself straight enough in the back? That's my fear. And the stone tables—he'd droop to the ground under them."
Mr. Huggins pleaded again.
"I'd wear the holy horns on my brow and everything; and many a married man would rather not. But 'tis nought to me."
"I had thought to write speeches in character for the emblematical people, and perhaps some verses," said Churchward; whereupon the face of the aged Huggins fell.
"Don't ax me to say nought," he begged. "Even as 'tis, if I walk as Moses, I shall be sweating for fear under my sacred coat; and if I had to tell a speech, I should disgrace myself and the company without a doubt."
"I'm against speeches altogether," declared Jarratt Weekes; "and so's Mr. Norseman here. We won't have no play-acting and no chattering of silly verses."
Mr. Churchward glared at his foe, and Weekes glared back and poured out more beer. The chairman thought of certain rhymes already in his desk, and Mr. Spry, who knew of these rhymes, cast a timorous and sympathetic eye at his gloomy friend.
"Schoolmaster's made some beautiful speeches, that nobody here could mend, for he's been so very good as to let me read them," he said.