And now the chairman interfered. "He trusted he should be supported by the company, sitting there as he did: if the young gentleman was an improficient in the duties of the table, perhaps he might be allowed to say that they all knew what it was to be young at one time in their lives, and he _did_ think--though he was the last man in the world to wish to give the slightest offence--that the gentleman to the right of the vice-president of that table had not acted so courteously as he might have done." And then there was a pretty general "Hear, hear!" But quickly uprose the irritable gentleman, and rejected the admonition of the president with scorn, and thumped the table during his delivery of a most energetic oration of half a minute, until he shook the glasses so that they rang changes against each other. The irritable gentleman no sooner sat down than another arose, and another, and another, each demanding that he should apologise to the president for his want of courtesy, and the irritable gentleman yielded to apologise--though it was far more from eagerness to eat, than a return of good-nature.--Diggory was "assisted" in cutting up the fowl by one on his left, who began to be warmed with sympathy for the youth, now the sympathiser's stomach was allayed in some small degree by sundry hearty slices of mutton. To the drawing of the cloth Diggory experienced no further mortification: but the past was enough, in any conscience; and during the season in which that company of "highly respectable gentlemen" were masticating their viands, poor Diggory, who did not eat three mouthfuls, might most aptly be styled "the lad who felt like a fish out of water."