Fortunately the dinner gong now sounded, and Mrs. Bostwick dragged Bessie from the piano and ushered her guests into the dining-room. Mr. Bostwick followed, singing “The Last Rose of Summer” as if it had been an encore demanded by a thousand delighted hearers.
The poor woman was in despair at witnessing her husband’s undignified actions and wondered what she might do to control him. The professor seemed more grave than usual; the senator’s face wore an offended expression, and Bessie kept moving her fingers as if she still wanted to play the piano.
Mrs. Bostwick managed to get them all seated, although her husband had broken into another aria; and then the maid brought in the soup.
When she carried a plate to the professor, he cried, in an excited voice:
“Hold it higher! Higher—I say!” And springing up he gave it a sudden kick that sent it nearly to the ceiling, from whence the dish descended to scatter soup over Bessie and the maid and to smash in pieces upon the crown of the professor’s bald head.
At this atrocious act the senator rose from his seat with an exclamation of horror and glanced at his hostess.
For some time Mrs. Bostwick had been staring straight ahead, with a dazed expression; but now, catching the senator’s eye, she bowed gracefully and began reciting “The Charge of the Light Brigade” in forceful tones.
The senator shuddered. Such disgraceful rioting he had never seen nor heard before in a decent private family. He felt that his reputation was at stake, and, being the only sane person, apparently, in the room, there was no one to whom he might appeal.
The maid had run away to cry hysterically in the kitchen; Mr. Bostwick was singing “O Promise Me;” the professor was trying to kick the globes off the chandelier; Mrs. Bostwick had switched her recitation to “The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck,” and Bessie had stolen into the parlor and was pounding out the overture from the “Flying Dutchman.”
The senator was not at all sure he would not go crazy himself, presently; so he slipped away from the turmoil, and, catching up his had and coat in the hall, hurried from the house.