Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.
Meanwhile the class, at first raised to a state of ecstatic enjoyment by the Eel's misfortunes, then growing a little anxious lest he should go too far, was again subsiding to its wonted peaceful hum, like that of a vast and well-contented bumble-bee.
Suddenly we became aware that the Professor was on his feet in the midst of a stern and awful silence.
"My eye has fallen," he began solemnly, "on what I do not expect to see. I hope the—gentleman will remember where he is—and who I am!"
During the pronouncement of this awful allocution the professorial arm was extended, and a finger, steady as the finger of Fate, pointed directly at the unhappy Gibby, who, prone in the dust, appeared to be meditating a discourse upon the text, "I am a worm and no man!"
His head was almost on the level of the floor and his limbs extended far up the gallery stairs. To say that his face was fiery-red gives but a faint idea of its colour, while a black streak upon his nose proved that the charwomen of the college were not a whit more diligent than the students thereof.
What happened after this is a kind of maze. I suppose that Gibby regained a seat somewhere, and that the lecture proceeded after a fashion; but I do not know for certain. Bursts of unholy mirth forced their way through the best linen handkerchiefs, rolled hard and used as gags.
But there grew up a feeling among many that though doubtless there was humour in the case, the Eel had gone a little too far, and if Professor Galbraith were genuinely angered he might bring the matter before the Senatus, with the result that Gilbert would not only lose his bursary, but be sent down as well, to his father's sorrow and his own loss.
So when the class was at last over, half-a-dozen of us gathered round Gibby and represented to him that he must go at once to the retiring-room and ask the Professor's pardon.
At first and for long the Eel was recalcitrant. He would not go. What was he to say? We instructed him. We used argument, appeal, persuasion. We threatened torture. Finally, yielding to those heavier battalions on the side of which Providence is said to fight, Gibby was led to the door with a captor at each elbow. We knocked; he entered. The door was shut behind him, but not wholly. Half-a-dozen ears lined the crack at intervals, like limpets clinging to a smooth streak on a tidal rock. We could not hear the Eel's words. Only a vague murmur reached us, and I doubt if much more reached Professor Galbraith. The Eel stopped and there was a pause. We feared its ill omen.