Here she softly whispered something to Pepusch, and Peregrine thought he collected that Master Flea was the subject of it. In the meantime the dispute between the microscopists had grown hotter and hotter; they had again recourse to their weapons, and Peregrine was busy in trying to sooth their wrath, when the company was again augmented. The door was burst open amidst a strange screaming and croaking, and in rushed the Amateur, Monsieur Legénie, and the barber, Leech. With wild, furious gestures they flew upon the princess, and the barber had already caught her by the shoulder, when Pepusch thrust away the odious assailant with irresistible might, wound about his whole flexible body, and squeezed it together in such a manner that he shot up into the air, quite thin and long, roaring aloud with pain all the time. While this was going on with the barber, the two microscopists had reconciled themselves in an instant on the appearance of the common enemy, and made a united attack on the Amateur with much success. It availed him nothing that, when he was sufficiently drubbed below, he rose up to the cieling; for Leuwenhock and Swammerdamm had both seized short thick sticks, and whenever the Amateur descended, they drove him up again by blows, dexterously applied to that part of the body which best can bear them. It was a pretty game of racket, at which the Amateur, by compulsion indeed, played the most fatiguing, and at the same time the most ungracious part, namely, that of the ball.