CHAPTER V.
THE TRIAL.
For a moment nobody spoke. The Wallypug sat back in a huddled heap in his chair, looking up into Madame’s face with a scared expression. A. Fish unconcernedly began to eat some steaming porridge from a plate in front of him—and I sat still and waited events.
A band of musicians in the gallery at the end of the hall were playing somewhat discordantly, till Madame turned around and called out in an angry voice:
“Just stop that noise, will you? I can’t hear myself speak.”
“STOP THAT NOISE!”
The musicians immediately left off playing with the exception of an old hippopotamus, playing a brass instrument, who being deaf, and very near-sighted, had neither heard what had been said nor observed that the others had stopped. With his eyes fixed on the music stand in front of him, he kept up a long discordant tootling on his own account, gravely beating time with his head and one foot.