Over an hour was now passed in a state of inactivity. Some of the members slept and some didn't. As a means of inducing excitement of some kind, a member signalized the institution on the first floor for pork and beans for the entire crowd. This was promptly answered, and for a time the club had enough to engage its attention. After the aforesaid luxuries had been duly disposed of, the members proceeded to take seats, lie on the floor, prop themselves against the wall, and hang themselves up on a peg, as best suited their independent fancies. The presiding officer announced that the rules on this occasion would be enforced strictly. Accordingly, each individual present began to do exactly what pleased him, without any regard to the comfort, convenience, or personal predilections of anybody else. The Higholdboy first secured the left
boot of every member present. After pulling a boot on each leg of the table, he put one on each of his hands, like a gauntlet, and then laid the seventh on the table. The object of Mr. Spout, in pursuing this eccentric course of conduct, soon became apparent, when he laid himself on the table, using the aforesaid solitary boot as a pillow, it being manifest that he desired to preclude the possibility of an adjournment during the nap, and inasmuch as it would be found inconvenient for the members to leave the premises with but a single pedal covering, and as it would be impossible for a member to secure the other, without awakening the most venerable and exceedingly somnolent Higholdboy, it will be apparent to the credulous reader that Mr. Spout's idea was quite ingenious.
Under these circumstances, each member determined to make himself as comfortable as the time, the place, and the conveniences would admit of.
Mr. Boggs was lying flat on his back, trying to drink a hot whisky-punch without breaking the tumbler, spilling the liquor, or getting the sugar inside his whiskers. Mr. Overdale was learning "juggling without a master," and was endeavoring to spin plates on his whalebone cane. In striving to acquire this elegant accomplishment, he had broken all the dishes in the premises. As he varied his plate-spinning endeavors with repeated trials at tossing the cups and balls, for which purpose he used the tumblers and coffee-cups, and as, whenever he caught one cup, he dropped two, and stepped on the fragments, the work of demolition went bravely on.
Mr. Van Dam amused himself by blacking the faces of all the pictures in the room with charcoal. Dennis employed himself for an hour and a half in whittling off with a jack-knife one leg of every chair in the apartment, so as to make it four inches shorter than the rest. Wagstaff collected all the books he could find, and piled them into a shaky pyramid, which he was preparing to push over with a broomstick upon the head of the unconscious Higholdboy.
Quackenbush had not been idle; taking advantage of the drowsiness of his superior officer, he had sewed the bottoms of that gentleman's pantaloons together with a waxed end, after which he made a moustache on himself with burned cork, and then painted the left side of his face in three-cornered patches like a sleepy harlequin, dyed his shirt-collar scarlet with red ink, and went to sleep in the corner to await the result, having first tripped up Mr. Overdale, who, by way of a new variation in his juggling performances, was now trying to balance the poker on his nose, while he held a rocking-chair in one hand and a hat-box full of oyster shells in the other. Dropper had a checker-board before him, and was superintending a game between his right and left hand.
But suddenly, those of the Elephants who were in their waking senses, became sensible of a noise outside. It begun at the foot of the stairs, like the sound of a regiment of crazy Boston watchmen, all springing their rattles at once. The noise became louder, and seemed to be coming up the stairs, and now rivalled in sound a mail-train on a race. Now the uproar became more distinct, and evidently proceeded from some person or persons outside, who were provided with some ingenious facilities for kicking up a row, with which ordinary roisterers are unacquainted. These persons now began a furious attack upon the "outer walls." Mr. Overdale paused in his plate-breaking occupation, long enough to pour out a few emphatic sentences, addressed to the individuals outside, in which he consigned them to a locality too hot for a powder-mill, and then resumed his practice.
As the door began to shake, Overdale laid down the poker, smashed what few large pieces of plates were left over the head of the recumbent Quackenbush, awoke the Higholdboy by rolling him off the table, aroused the rest of the party by a few kicks in the ribs, and then, undoing the fastenings of the door, was proceeding to expostulate with the disturbers. No sooner, however, had he opened the door, than a rush was made by the invaders, and Mr. Dropper upset by the besieging party. Mr. Dropper fell upon the stomach of the half-awakened Quackenbush, they both pitched into Mr. Boggs, and then all three rolled over the Higholdboy. This last-named personage, having the bottoms of his pantaloons sewed together, could not arise until the friendly jack-knife unfettered his lengthy legs. All parties being restored to the perpendicular, an immediate inquiry was made into the cause of the disturbance.
Then it was discovered that the person who had kicked up this diabolical bobbery was no less a personage than the heretofore discreet and temperate Johnny Cake, aided and abetted by an individual unknown to the rest of the company, but whose appearance bespoke him to be one of the boys, who, although not an "Elephant," presented at first sight distinguished claims to be honored with that enviable distinction.