Pandemonium broke forth; bottles rolled, glasses fell unheeded and shivered upon the floor while the long room roared with Gargantuan laughter, rising waves of merriment wherein Sir Benjamin's indignant outburst was wholly drowned and his rapping was lost and all unheeded. Howbeit, having broken two glasses and a plate in his determined knocking, he seized upon a bottle and thundered with that until gradually the tempest subsided and a partial calm succeeded.
"Gentlemen!" he cried, his very peruke seeming to bristle with outraged decorum, "gentlemen, I move the total suppression of this verse—" Here his voice was lost in shouts of: "No, no! Let be, Ben! Order!" "I say," repeated Sir Benjamin, "it must and shall be suppressed!"
"O why, my Ben, why?" queried Alvaston, feeble with mirth.
"Because 'tis altogether too—too natural! Too—ah intensely, personally intimate——" Here the rafters rang again while drawers, ostlers and waiting-maids peeped in at slyly-opened doors. Silence being at last restored Sir Benjamin arose, snuffed daintily, flicked himself gracefully and bowed:
"Gentlemen," said he, "after the hem! brilliant flights o' fancy we have been privileged to hear, I allude particularly to Sir Jasper's soulful strophes and to—to——"
"Alton's gamesome flea?" suggested Alvaston, whereat was laughter with cries of "Order."
"And to Marchdale's delightful lyric," continued Sir Benjamin. "I do confess to no small diffidence in offering to your attention my own hem! I say my own poor compositions and do so in all humility. My first is a trifle I may describe as an alliterative acrostic, its matter as followeth."
"Bewitching Bet by bounteous Beauty blessed
Each eager eye's enjoyment is expressed
That thus to thee doth turn then—thrilling thought;
Thou, thou thyself that teach may too be taught,
Yea, you yourself—to yearn as beauty ought."
"I' faith, gentlemen," said he, bowing to their loud applause, "I humbly venture to think it hath some small ingenuity. My next is a set of simple verselets pretending to no great depth of soul nor heart-stirring pathos, they are hem! they are—what they are——"
"Are ye sure o' that, Ben?" demanded Alvaston earnestly.