Diffidence! oh, where _was_ diffidence? Hugh had stepped in behind the footlights and was standing and looking out across them as foursquare and unsmiling as a gravestone.
Their light was on his brow, whose frown smote her with foreboding. Half folded he held a slip of paper as if about to give official notice of some grave matter, and his aggressive eyes, that seemed to her to look a greater distance away from a greater distance within than ever before, were fixed on one man. Absolute silence fell. And thereupon, to the open-mouthed amazement of the audience, with his stare yet on that one face, and in a voice that seemed octaves below hers, he began to sing straight at the exhorter:
A shout of laughter, a rain of clappings, a thunder of canes and feet. Sitters bumped up and down. They were safe home again in nonsense and were glad. Ramsey's laugh was like a dancer's bells though under cover of the dusk she let the tears roll down. Old Joy moaned and shook her head. John the Baptist had begun to retort but withered before a ferocious muffled threat from the mate while following him into the aisle. "Bucked and gagged," was the mate's odd phrase, at which a dozen or so nearest him laughed again, a bit nervously. They looked back to see if the twins had heard it, and were just in time to catch from Julian and the general a last glare of scorn as the group of five left the cabin. Then again came silence, except behind the footlights, where the sphinx-like singer bore straight on through the refrain and came to the new lines. Sing them out, sphinx; the more senseless the better.
"Nex' come de 'coon and de cockatroo, Nex' come de 'coon and de cockatroo, Nex' come de 'coon and de cockatroo, De hawg and de whoopdedoodendoo. Do you belong----?"
The inquiry was drowned in applause, which swelled as the mate and the exhorter went out with the latter's two backers--more eagle-eyed and stallion-eyed than ever--and with Watson's cub at the rear. A number stretched up for a glimpse of Ramsey but she too--and the actor--and Joy--were gone. There was another waiting hush, and the droll singer, so droll because so granite solemn, resumed:
"Den turkle-dove an' blue-bird blue, Den turkle-dove an' blue-bird blue, Den turkle-dove an' blue-bird blue, De merry-go-roun' and de hullabaloo. Do you belong----?"