Escorted by the great and learned Diogenes Lillie, Esq., and a few of the leading members, Harry was conducted to the hall, and seated within the inclosure of the platform.
To depict his feelings would be impossible—he knew he was about to make himself ridiculous, and was tempted more than once to turn his back and quit the scene of his approaching disgrace. Notwithstanding the tempting reward he had in view, the alternative was a hard one—but his eye turned to a distant corner of the hall where the sweet face of May smiled upon him, and her fair hand waved encouragement. He wavered no longer.
Resolving to meet his fate like a hero, Harry now arose, and after a few preliminaries introduced—“The Golden Age.”
The two first stanza elicited a general smile from the audience, the third and fourth exerted a different influence—influenza became universal, to judge from the coughing and hem-ming! Between the fifth and sixth, many persons left the house, and as Harry with the energy of despair drew near the close of the first canto, the hissing and hooting of boys outside and in the building was almost deafening, while one of the committee arose and advised the orator to sit down!
With the self-satisfaction of a martyr he was preparing to do so, when his eye suddenly fell upon the author, whom he detected at a glance to be the most active in the war of ridicule which was waging against him. Rage for the moment overcame his discretion. Hurling the manuscript upon the floor, he sprang from the desk, made one leap down the steps, and rushed upon his deceitful patron!
“Do you dare to laugh at me!” he exclaimed, pale with anger, “do you dare to utter a word, you—you who are yourself the—”
A little hand was on his arm, and a soft voice whispered:
“Harry, dear Harry, come away.” And obeying the gentle mandate our hero suffered himself to be led from the scene of his mortification.
“Poor fellow!” cried Mr. Lillie, recovering from the alarm of Harry’s onset, “poor fellow, he is almost beside himself I see—well, it is pitiful trash after all, and I fear I gave him too much encouragement, my friendship got the better of my judgment—yet his delivery is the worst—why I am not sure gentlemen but his ranting and mouthing would render even Shakspeare ridiculous. The poem reads well—depend upon it gentlemen there is genius after all where that poem came from.”
When Mr. Lillie reached home he found Harry awaiting him, storming and raving to and fro in the library like a madman. Rushing upon the great Diogenes he seized him by the collar: