Toad-in-the-hole returned thanks in a neat speech.  He likened himself to the Old Man of the Mountains, in a few brief allusions, that made the company absolutely yell with laughter; and he concluded with giving the health of

Mr. Von Hammer, with many thanks to him for his learned History of the Old Man and his subjects the assassins.

Upon this I rose and said, that doubtless most of the company were aware of the distinguished place assigned by orientalists to the very learned Turkish scholar Von Hammer the Austrian; that he had made the profoundest researches into our art as connected with those early and eminent artists the Syrian assassins in the period of the Crusaders; that his work had been for several years deposited, as a rare treasure of art, in the library of the club.  Even the author’s name, gentlemen, pointed him out as the historian of our art—­Von Hammer—­

“Yes, yes,” interrupted Toad-in-the-hole, who never can sit still—­“Yes, yes, Von Hammer—­he’s the man for a malleus haereticorum:  think rightly of our art, or he’s the man to tickle your catastrophes.  You all know what consideration Williams bestowed on the hammer, or the ship carpenter’s mallet, which is the same thing.  Gentlemen, I give you another great hammer—­Charles the Hammer, the Marteau, or, in old French, the Martel—­he hammered the Saracens till they were all as dead as door-nails—­he did, believe me.”

“Charles Martel, with all the honors.”

But the explosion of Toad-in-the-hole, together with the uproarious cheers for the grandpapa of Charlemagne, had now made the company unmanageable.  The orchestra was again challenged with shouts the stormiest for the new glee.  I made again a powerful effort to overrule the challenge.  I might as well have talked to the winds.  I foresaw a tempestuous evening; and I ordered myself to be strengthened with three waiters on each side; the vice-president with as many.  Symptoms of unruly enthusiasm were beginning to show out; and I own that I myself was considerably excited as the orchestra opened with its storm of music, and the impassioned glee began—­“Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the-hole—­Ubi est ille Reporter?” And the frenzy of the passion became absolutely convulsing, as the full chorus fell in—­“Et iteratum est ab omnibus—­Non est inventus”

By this time I saw how things were going:  wine and music were making most of the amateurs wild.  Particularly Toad-in-the-hole, though considerably above a hundred years old, was getting as vicious as a young leopard.  It was a fixed impression with the company that he had murdered the reporter in the year 1812; since which time (viz. twenty-six years) “ille reporter” had been constantly reported “Non est inventus.”  Consequently, the glee about himself, which of itself was most tumultuous and jubilant, carried him off his feet.  Like the famous choral songs amongst the citizens of Abdera, nobody could hear it without a contagious desire for falling back into the agitating music of “Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the-hole,” &c.  I enjoined vigilance upon my assessors, and the business of the evening proceeded.