“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 prophesying,” said Gwynplaine.

The laughter exploded anew; and below this laughter, anger growled its continued bass.  One of the minors, Lionel Cranfield Sackville, Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, stood upon his seat, not smiling, but grave as became a future legislator, and, without saying a word, looked at Gwynplaine with his fresh twelve-year old face, and shrugged his shoulders.  Whereat the Bishop of St. Asaph’s whispered in the ear of the Bishop of St. David’s, who was sitting beside him, as he pointed to Gwynplaine, “There is the fool;” then pointing to the child, “there is the sage.”