“Firebrand! Hoo-roo! Hoo-roo!”
And then—as though they had been all clashed together by one stroke into silence—the Bells ceased. The shouting and laughter and Paunch-drumming of the Goblins likewise eddied away into a dull murmur—and the Goblin in the Green Pulpit raised a skeleton hand with the first-finger-bone elevated as a signal for attention.
“My friends!” it began—“My dear brethren——!”
“Ha-HA! Ha-ha-HA!”
And the crowd of uncanny creatures twisted and writhed with ecstasy, tossing their queerly decorated heads about, and spreading their wide mouths into elastic grins which seemed to swallow up all the rest of their faces. As if in sympathy with the general hilarity, the “Reverend Mr. Firebrand” grinned also—a peculiar and very ghastly grin indeed.
“My friends!” he or It resumed—“How good it is for us all to be here! What a sign of regeneration——!”
“Ha-ha-HA!”
“Of penitence——”
“Ha-ha!”
“Of unselfishness and charity——”