Precedence again disturbed the minds of the company.  At last the red-faced young farmer led off with ‘The Rose and the Thorn.’  In that day Chloe still lived; nor were the amorous transports of Strephon quenched.  Mountainous inflation—­mouse-like issue characterized the young farmer’s first verse.  Encouraged by manifest approbation he now told Chloe that he ’by Heaven! never would plant in that bosom a thorn,’ with such a volume of sound as did indeed show how a lover’s oath should be uttered in the ear of a British damsel to subdue her.

‘Good!’ cried Mr. Raikes, anxious to be convivial.

Subsiding into impertinence, he asked Laxley, ’Could you tip us a Strephonade, sir?  Rejoiced to listen to you, I’m sure!  Promise you my applause beforehand.’

Harry replied hotly:  ‘Will you step out of the room with me a minute?’

‘Have you a confession to make?’ quoth Jack, unmoved.  ’Have you planted a thorn in the feminine flower-garden?  Make a clean breast of it at the table.  Confess openly and be absolved.’

While Evan spoke a word of angry reproof to Raikes, Harry had to be restrained by his two friends.  The rest of the company looked on with curiosity; the mouth of the chairman was bunched.  Drummond had his eyes on Evan, who was gazing steadily at the three.  Suddenly ’The fellow isn’t a gentleman!’ struck the attention of Mr. Raikes with alarming force.

Raikes—­and it may be because he knew he could do more than Evan in this respect—­vociferated:  ‘I’m the son of a gentleman!’

Drummond, from the head of the table, saw that a diversion was imperative.  He leaned forward, and with a look of great interest said: 

‘Are you?  Pray, never disgrace your origin, then.’

’If the choice were offered me, I think I would rather have known his father,’ said the smiling fellow, yawning, and rocking on his chair.

’You would, possibly, have been exceedingly intimate—­with his right foot,’ said Raikes.

The other merely remarked:  ’Oh! that is the language of the son of a gentleman.’

The tumult of irony, abuse, and retort, went on despite the efforts of Drummond and the chairman.  It was odd; for at Farmer Broadmead’s end of the table, friendship had grown maudlin:  two were seen in a drowsy embrace, with crossed pipes; and others were vowing deep amity, and offering to fight the man that might desire it.

‘Are ye a friend? or are ye a foe?’ was heard repeatedly, and consequences to the career of the respondent, on his choice of affirmatives to either of these two interrogations, emphatically detailed.

It was likewise asked, in reference to the row at the gentlemen’s end:  ‘Why doan’ they stand up and have ‘t out?’

‘They talks, they speechifies—­why doan’ they fight for ’t, and then be friendly?’

‘Where’s the yarmony, Mr. Chair, I axes—­so please ye?’ sang out Farmer Broadmead.