But to see all the subtle merits that now begin to bud out from Mr. Tom, the chairman and giver of the feast; and also rightly to appreciate the speeches, we require to be enormously charged with Ale.  Mr. Raikes did his best to keep his head above the surface of the rapid flood.  He conceived the chairman in brilliant colours, and probably owing to the energy called for by his brain, the legs of the young man failed him twice, as he tried them.  Attention was demanded.  Mr. Raikes addressed the meeting.

The three young gentlemen-cricketers had hitherto behaved with a certain propriety.  It did not offend Mr. Raikes to see them conduct themselves as if they were at a play, and the rest of the company paid actors.  He had likewise taken a position, and had been the first to laugh aloud at a particular slip of grammar; while his shrugs at the aspirates transposed and the pronunciation prevalent, had almost established a free-masonry between him and one of the three young gentlemen-cricketers-a fair-haired youth, with a handsome, reckless face, who leaned on the table, humorously eyeing the several speakers, and exchanging by-words and laughs with his friends on each side of him.

But Mr. Raikes had the disadvantage of having come to the table empty in stomach—­thirsty exceedingly; and, I repeat, that as, without experience, you are the victim of divinely given Eve, so, with no foundation to receive it upon, are you the victim of good sound Ale.  He very soon lost his head.  He would otherwise have seen that he must produce a wonderfully-telling speech if he was to keep the position he had taken, and had better not attempt one.  The three young cricketers were hostile from the beginning.  All of them leant forward, calling attention loudly laughing for the fun to come.

‘Gentlemen!’ he said:  and said it twice.  The gap was wide, and he said, ‘Gentlemen!’ again.

This commencement of a speech proves that you have made the plunge, but not that you can swim.  At a repetition of ‘Gentlemen!’ expectancy resolved into cynicism.

‘Gie’n a help,’ sang out a son of the plough to a neighbour of the orator.

‘Hang it!’ murmured another, ‘we ain’t such gentlemen as that comes to.’

Mr. Raikes was politely requested to ‘tune his pipe.’

With a gloomy curiosity as to the results of Jack’s adventurous undertaking, and a touch of anger at the three whose bearing throughout had displeased him, Evan regarded his friend.  He, too, had drunk, and upon emptiness.  Bright ale had mounted to his brain.  A hero should be held as sacred as the Grand Llama:  so let no more be said than that he drank still, nor marked the replenishing of his glass.

Raikes cleared his throat for a final assault:  he had got an image, and was dashing off; but, unhappily, as if to make the start seem fair, he was guilty of his reiteration, ‘Gentlemen.’

Everybody knew that it was a real start this time, and indeed he had made an advance, and had run straight through half a sentence.  It was therefore manifestly unfair, inimical, contemptuous, overbearing, and base, for one of the three young cricketers at this period to fling back weariedly and exclaim:  ‘By the Lord; too many gentlemen here!’