Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 2.djvu/101

 hustled and poked in the ribs. He felt himself also pressed to the bosom of Eustache Poupin, who apparently was sobbing, while he heard some one say, 'Did ye hear the little beggar, as bold as a lion?' A trial of personal prowess between him and Mr. Delancey was proposed, but somehow it didn't take place, and at the end of five minutes the club-room emptied itself, not, evidently, to be reconstituted, outside, in a revolutionary procession. Paul Muniment had taken hold of Hyacinth, and said, 'I'll trouble you to stay, you little desperado. I'll be blowed if I ever expected to see you on the stump!' Muniment remained, and M. Poupin and Mr. Schinkel lingered in their overcoats, beneath a dim, surviving gasburner, in the unventilated medium in which, at each renewed gathering, the Bloomsbury club seemed to recognise itself.

'Upon my word, I believe your game,' said Muniment, looking down at him with a serious face.

'Of course you think it's swagger, "self-loaf," as Schinkel says. But it isn't.' Then Hyacinth asked, 'In God's name, why don't we do something?'

'Ah, my child, to whom do you say it?' Eustache Poupin exclaimed, folding his arms, despairingly.

'Whom do you mean by "we"?' said Muniment.

'All the lot of us. There are plenty of them ready.'

'Ready for what? There is nothing to be done here.'

Hyacinth stared. 'Then why the deuce do you come?'

'I daresay I shan't come much more. This is a place you have always overestimated.'

'I wonder if I have overestimated you,' Hyacinth murmured, gazing at his friend.