our time!

[_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 Fiancee, 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!")

_The Chatty O.G._ (_nudging him_). How very distinctly you hear the
dialogue, S