Sometimes one of the party stole on tiptoe to the door, and
looked cautiously through, returning almost instantaneously, and
expressing to his next neighbour, by various grimaces, his immense
interest in the sight he had just beheld. Occasionally there came from
this mysterious chamber sounds resembling the cackling of poultry,
varied now and then by a noise like the falling of a shower of small,
light substances upon a hard floor. Whenever these sounds were audible,
the members of the party outside the door looked round upon each other
and smiled--some sarcastically, some triumphantly. A few among these
patient expectants grasped rolls of vellum in their hands; the rest held
nosegays of rare flowers, or supported in their arms small statues and
pictures in mosaic. Of their number, some were painters and poets, some
orators and philosophers, and some statuaries and musicians. Among such
a motley assemblage of professions, remarkable in all ages of the world
for fostering in their votaries the vice of irritability, it may seem
strange that so quiet and orderly a behaviour should exist as that just
described.
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