“Ah! ah!”
“They are going to fight.”
“No, they aren’t.”
“You will find me to-morrow, sir.”
“This very moment,” Nathan answered.
“Come, come, you pair of fire-eaters!”
“You are another!” said the prime mover in the quarrel.
“Ah, I can’t stand upright, perhaps?” asked the pugnacious Nathan, straightening himself up like a stag-beetle about to fly.
He stared stupidly round the table, then, completely exhausted by the effort, sank back into his chair, and mutely hung his head.
“Would it not have been nice,” the critic said to his neighbor, “to fight about a book I have neither read nor seen?”