“‘You are far from being a bad—’”
“Name! name!”
“‘Nicholas Whitworth.’”
“Hooray! hooray! it’s a symbolical day!”
Somebody wailed in, and began to sing this rhyme (leaving out “it’s”) to the lovely “Mikado” tune of “When a man’s afraid of a beautiful maid;” the audience joined in, with joy; then, just in time, somebody contributed another line—
“And don’t you this forget—”
The house roared it out. A third line was at once furnished—
“Corruptibles far from Hadleyburg are—”
The house roared that one too. As the last note died, Jack Halliday’s voice rose high and clear, freighted with a final line—
“But the Symbols are here, you bet!”