Ellsworth found himself swung to a chair which appeared on a table, and a learned judge was playing “Lauriger Horatius” on the piano, and he was singing it in the lovely tenor which had never grown old, which had a subtle tone somewhere in it which gripped the souls of human beings. The men’s voices rolled into his when the chorus came, and all the house rang with strong music.
Ubi sunt o pocula
Dulciora mellæ
Rixæ pax et oscula
Rubentis puellæ.
The swinging old air thundered like the diapason of an organ. And as it ended, “Give us a jolly one,” the senator cried. And the judge at the piano dashed into “Dunderbeck,” and Ellsworth was leading, beating time with his hand, while every man jack, he who could sing and equally he who could not, was roaring out the classic lament:
For long-tailed rats and pussy cats
Shall never more be seen;
They’ll all be ground to sausage meat
In Dunderbeck’s machine.