u you needn't start up from your
chair as if I was going to cut your throat? Sit steady, and gape at me
like an idiot! That's the style!)--Tommy, my boy, Tommy, my boy,
To--(Where on earth's the place? Oh yes)--when Abednego Jinks says a
thing, Tommy, my boy--"

"Oughtn't you to look funnier than that, yourself?" interposed Ranger,
relaxing his own expression to ask the question.

"Oh, of course; only I'm reading just now. Oakshott will have to get
that up, of course. Now begin again. Go on; look a fool.--That'll
do.--When Abednego Jinks says a thing, Tommy, my boy--(I say, screw your
chair round a bit, and face the audience)."

"For mercy's sake," said Stafford, who was getting rather tired of the
whole thing, "do tell us what happens when Abednego Jinks says a thing!"

"Tommy, my boy, you may take your Alfred David--(Do look rather more
vacant, old man)."

"My dear fellow," once more interposed the prefect, "Ranger could not
possibly look a more utter idiot than he looks this minute. What is he
to take his affidavit about? I do so want to know."

"You may take your Alfred David, Tommy, my boy (Oh no, that's wrong)--
Tommy, my boy, you may take your Alfred David."

"Yes, yes--go on," urged Stafford.

"There's more in it than there is in your head."

"More in what? the affidavit?" asked Ranger solemnly.

"No, that's not what you say; you say, `You don't say so.'"

"I think," said Stafford, "that what he did say was a good deal funnier
than what he ought to say. What's the good of saying, `You don't say
so,' when everyone of us here can swear you did? I don't see the joke
in it myself. Do any of you?"

"No; was it meant for one?" asked someone gravely.

"It's not written down in the book that anyone's to grin," said Maple,
hastily referring to his copy.

"Oh, that's all right--only I wish you'd look alive and get to some of
the jokes. I thought you said it was a funny piece."

"So it is," replied Wake, rather dismally; "it's full of points."

"They must all be crowded up to the end, then," said Stafford.

If Wake had not had a soul above difficulties he might have been tempted
to abandon his labour of Hercules on the spot; and, indeed, it is
probable his "troupe" would have struck, and so saved him the trouble of
deciding, had not an extraordinary and dramatic change suddenly come
over the aspect of affairs. The rehearsal was dragging its slow length
along, and everybody, even the amiable