Contrary to reasonable expectation, the face of Mr. Sala showed no sign of joy at the reminiscence. He only looked rather helplessly at Jack Dunquerque, who turned red, and brought up the rest of his men together, as if to get the introductions over quickly.
"Mr. Beck, these gentlemen are Mr. Darwin, Professor Huxley, and Mr. Frederick Leighton. Ladds you know well enough already. Step up, Tommy."
Gilead Beck shook hands with each, and then, drawing himself up to his full height, laid his left hand within his waistcoat, brandished his right above his head with a preliminary flourish, and began his speech.
"Gentlemen all," he said, "I am more than proud to make your acquaintance. Across the foaming waves of the mighty Atlantic there is a land whose institootions—known to Mr. Sala—air not unlike your own, whose literature is your own up to a hundred years ago ["Hear, hear!" from Cornelius], whose language is the same as yours. We say hard things of each other, gentlemen; but the hard things are said on the low levels, not on the heights where you and your kindred spirits dwell. No, gentlemen,"—here he raised both arms and prepared for a rhetorical burst,—"when the American eagle, proudly bearing the stars and stripes——"
"Dinner on the table, sir!" bawled the head waiter, throwing open the doors with the grandest flourish and standing in the open doorway.
"Hear, hear!" cried Humphrey a little late, because he meant the cheer for the speech, and it sounded like a joy bell ringing for the announcement of dinner. Mr. Beck thought it rather rude, but he did not say so, and vented his wrath upon the waiter.
"Great Jehoshaphat!" he cried, "can't you see when a gentleman is on the stump? Who the devil asked you to shove in?"
"Never mind," said Jack irreverently. "Spout the rest after dinner."
A sigh of relief escaped the lips of all, and the party, headed, after some demur, by the host, who was escorted, one on each side, like a great man with his private secretary, by the Twins, passed into the dining-room.
Oddly enough, when their host passed on before them, the guests turned to each other, and the same extraordinary smile which Jack Dunquerque checked on their first appearance passed from one to the other. Why should Alfred Tennyson look in the face of Thomas Carlyle and laugh? What secret relationship is there between John Ruskin, Swinburne, and George Augustus Sala, that they should snigger and grin on catching each other's eyes? And, if one is to go on asking questions, why did Jack Dunquerque whisper in an agitated tone, "For Heaven's sake, Tom, and you fellows, keep it up?"