"Gentlemen," he said, advancing into the middle of the room, where,
by occasionally throwing out his arms to balance himself, he managed
to maintain a tolerably erect position, "I am going to make a
what-d'ye-call-it."
Furious cheers greeted this announcement, while one of the hearers,
carried away with enthusiasm at the prospect of listening to his
friend's eloquence, discharged his revolver at the roof, scattering
confusion amongst a legion of long-legged spiders that occupied the
dusty cobwebs above our heads.
I was afraid the whole town would be up in arms at our carryings on,
but they assured me that they all fired off their revolvers in that
room and that nobody came near them, as they were so well known in the
town.
"Gentlemen," continued Mr. Chillingworth, when order had been at length
restored, "I've been thinking, that's what I've been doing. Now let's
review the situation. Here we stand, a colony of English gentlemen:
here we are, don't you know, far from our homes and country and all
that sort of thing. What says the poet? I daresay some of you fellows
remember the passage. But what for, I ask! What, gentlemen, is the
object of our being here? That's just what I'm going to tell you, don't
you know. We are here, gentlemen, to infuse a little of our Anglo-Saxon
energy, and all that sort of thing, into this dilapidated old tin-pot
of a nation.
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