[_The crowd stream in, and pounce eagerly on chairs and telephones; the usual Fussy Family waste precious minutes in trying to get seats together, and get separated in the end. Undecided persons flit from one side to another. Gradually they all settle down, and stop their ears with the telephone-tubes, the prevailing expression being one of anxiety, combined with conscious and apologetic imbecility. Nervous people catch the eye of complete strangers across the table, and are seized with suppressed giggles. An Irritable Person finds himself between the Comic Man and a Chatty Old Gentleman.
_The Comic Man_ (_to his Fiancée, putting the tube to his ear_). Can't get _my_ telephone to tork yet! (_Shakes it._) _I'll_ wake 'em up! (_Puts the other tube to his mouth._) Hallo--hallo! are you there? Look alive with that Show o' yours, Guv'nor--we ain't got long to stop! (_Pretends to listen, and reply._) If you give me any of your cheek, I'll come down and punch your 'ead! (_Applies a tube to his eye._) All right, POLLY, they've _begun_--I can see the 'ero's legs!
_Polly_. Be quiet, can't you? I can't hold the tubes steady if you will keep making me laugh so. (_Listening._) Oh, ALF, I can hear singing--can't you? Isn't it lovely!
_The Com. M._ It seems to me there's a bluebottle, or something, got inside mine--I can 'ear _im_!
_The Irr. P._ (_angrily, to himself_). How the deuce do they expect--and that infernal organ in the nave has just started booming again--they ought to send out and stop it!
_The Chatty O.G._ (_touching his elbow_). I beg your pardon, Sir, but can you inform me what opera it is they're performing at Manchester? The _Prima Donna_ seems to be just finishing a song. Wonderful how one can hear it all!
_The Irr. P._ (_snapping_). Very wonderful indeed, under the circumstances! (_He corks both ears with the tubes_). It's too bad--now there's a confounded string-band beginning outs--(_Removes the tube._) Eh, what? (_More angrily than ever._) Why, it's _in_ the blanked thing! (_He fumbles with the tubes in trying to readjust them. At last he succeeds, and, after listening intently, is rewarded by hearing a muffled and ghostly voice, apparently from the bowels of the earth, say_--"Ha, say you so? Then am I indeed the hooshiest hearsher in the whole of Mumble-land!")