Can you do it?
PARAMORE: Sure. Do them all.
GLORIA: All right. You start from that side of the room and I'll start
from this.
MURIEL: Let's go!
(_Then Bedlam creeps screaming out of the bottles:_ TANA _plunges into
the recondite mazes of the train song, the plaintive "tootle toot-toot"
blending its melancholy cadences with the_ "Poor Butter-fly
(tink-atink), by the blossoms wait-ing" _of the phonograph._ MURIEL _is
too weak with laughter to do more than cling desperately to_ BARNES,
_who, dancing with the ominous rigidity of an army officer, tramps
without humor around the small space._ ANTHONY _is trying to hear_
RACHAEL'S _whisper--without attracting_ GLORIA's _attention...._
_But the grotesque, the unbelievable, the histrionic incident is about
to occur, one of those incidents in which life seems set upon the
passionate imitation of the lowest forms of literature._ PARAMORE _has
been trying to emulate_ GLORIA, _and as the commotion reaches its height
he begins to spin round and round, more and more dizzily--he staggers,
recovers, staggers again and then falls in the direction of the hall ...
almost into the arms of old_ ADAM PATCH, _whose approach has been
rendered inaudible by the pandemonium in the room.
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