s arose,--

"Enough! enough!" "Encore! encore!"

William Farmer, Baron Leimpster, flung at Gwynplaine the insult cast by
Ryc Quiney at Shakespeare,--

"Histrio, mima!"

Lord Vaughan, a sententious man, twenty-ninth on the barons' bench,
exclaimed,--

"We must be back in the days when animals had the gift of speech. In the
midst of human tongues the jaw of a beast has spoken."

"Listen to Balaam's ass," added Lord Yarmouth.

Lord Yarmouth presented that appearance of sagacity produced by a round
nose and a crooked mouth.

"The rebel Linnaeus is chastised in his tomb. The son is the punishment
of the father," said John Hough, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, whose
prebendary Gwynplaine's attack had glanced.

"He lies!" said Lord Cholmondeley, the legislator so well read up in the
law. "That which he calls torture is only the _peine forte et dure_, and
a very good thing, too. Torture is not practised in England."

Thomas Wentworth, Baron Raby, addressed the Chancellor.

"My Lord Chancellor, adjourn the House."

"No, no. Let him go on. He is amusing. Hurrah! hip! hip! hip!"

Thus shouted the young lords, their fun amounting to fury. Four of them
especially were in the full exasperation of hilarity and hate. These
were Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester; Thomas Tufton, Earl of Thanet;
Viscount Hatton; and the Duke of Montagu.

"To your tricks, Gwynplaine!" cried Rochester.

"Put him out, put him out!" shouted Thanet.

Viscount Hatton drew from his pocket a penny, which he flung to
Gwynplaine.

And John Campbell, Earl of Greenwich; Savage, Earl Rivers; Thompson,
Baron Haversham; Warrington, Escrick Rolleston, Rockingham, Carteret,
Langdale, Barcester, Maynard, Hunsdon, Caeernarvon, Cavendish,
Burlington, Robert Darcy, Earl of Holderness, Other Windsor, Earl of
Plymouth, applauded.

There was a tumult as of pandemonium or of pantheon, in which the words
of Gwynplaine were lost.

Amidst it all, there was heard but one word of Gwynplaine's: "Beware!"

Ralph, Duke of Montagu, recently down from Oxford, and still a beardless
youth, descended from the bench of dukes, where he sat the nineteenth in
order, and placed himself in front of Gwynplaine, with his arms folded.
In a sword there is a spot which cuts sharpest, and in a voice an accent
which insults most keenly. Montagu spoke with that accent, and sneering
with his face close to that of Gwynplaine, shouted,--"What are you
talking about?"

"I am prophe