Over an hour was now passed in a state of inactivity. Some of the members slept and some didn't. As a means of inducing excitement of some kind, a member signalized the institution on the first floor for pork and beans for the entire crowd. This was promptly answered, and for a time the club had enough to engage its attention. After the aforesaid luxuries had been duly disposed of, the members proceeded to take seats, lie on the floor, prop themselves against the wall, and hang themselves up on a peg, as best suited their independent fancies. The presiding officer announced that the rules on this occasion would be enforced strictly. Accordingly, each individual present began to do exactly what pleased him, without any regard to the comfort, convenience, or personal predilections of anybody else. The Higholdboy first secured the left boot of every member present. After pulling a boot on each leg of the table, he put one on each of his hands, like a gauntlet, and then laid the seventh on the table. The object of Mr. Spout, in pursuing this eccentric course of conduct, soon became apparent, when he laid himself on the table, using the aforesaid solitary boot as a pillow, it being manifest that he desired to preclude the possibility of an adjournment during the nap, and inasmuch as it would be found inconvenient for the members to leave the premises with but a single pedal covering, and as it would be impossible for a member to secure the other, without awakening the most venerable and exceedingly somnolent Higholdboy, it will be apparent to the credulous reader that Mr. Spout's idea was quite ingenious. Under these circumstances, each member determined to make himself as comfortable as the time, the place, and the conveniences would admit of. Mr. Boggs was lying flat on his back, trying to drink a hot whisky-punch without breaking the tumbler, spilling the liquor, or getting the sugar inside his whiskers. Mr. Overdale was learning "juggling without a master," and was endeavoring to spin plates on his whalebone cane. In striving to acquire this elegant accomplishment, he had broken all the dishes in the premises. As he varied his plate-spinning endeavors with repeated trials at tossing the cups and balls, for which purpose he used the tumblers and coffee-cups, and as, whenever he caught one cup, he dropped two, and stepped on the fragments, the work of demolition went bravely on. Mr. Van Dam amused himself by blacking the faces of all the pictures in the room with charcoal. Dennis employed himself for an hour and a half in whittling off with a jack-knife one leg of every chair in the apartment, so as to make it four inches shorter than the rest. Wagstaff collected all the books he could find, and piled them into a shaky pyramid, which he was preparing to push over with a broomstick upon the head of the unconscious Higholdboy.