'Only for the sake of speaking out of metre,' replied Dubb; at which the Brethren looked at one another and lifted their eyebrows. 'Well, at all events,' said Gyp, recovering his good-humour, 'we want to get the King out and put the usurper in his place.' 'Has anything been done to prepare the people for this change?' inquired Yellow-cap. 'Are they on our side?' 'We've got fifty paid _claqueurs_--I know that,' said Atub. 'And we have suspended the rule about full-dress in the stalls,' added Dubsix. 'Ah!' exclaimed Menin, nodding his head and crossing his feet on the table in republican style, 'there is a great deal in that.' 'How are you going to depose him?' Yellow-cap asked. 'In the usual way,' said Gyp: 'by finding a rhyme to him, and then putting him under foot.' 'But suppose he won't be deposed?' 'Ah, it will be our turn then,' said Ruba gloomily. 'He will appoint a successor, and we shall be repeated backwards.' At this all the Brethren curled their moustachios and sighed deeply. 'Who is to find the rhyme to "King Ormund?"' inquired Yellow-cap, to whom this affair began to look rather irregular. 'Who but the usurper?' cried all the Brethren together. 'And who is he?' said Yellow-cap. Hereupon the Brethren one and all took their pipes out of their mouths and deliberately pointed at Yellow-cap with their pipe-stems. At the same time they puffed out a vast cloud of tobacco-smoke, which rose to the ceiling of the room and collected there. 'Do you mean me?' cried Yellow-cap, recoiling. 'I never made a rhyme in my life.' 'You have said it!' they answered with one voice; 'so let it be!' At this moment they all arose and solemnly emptied their tankards; then they piled the tankards together in the centre of the table; and Dubsix and Atub, taking each an arm of Yellow-cap, raised him from the floor and seated him upon the pile as upon a throne. The six Brethren now joined hands and began to dance round and round the table, puffing volumes of smoke from their pipes as they went. Faster and wilder moved the dance, thicker and yellower whirled the smoke-wreaths, and the six faces sped dizzily round the table, until it seemed to Yellow-cap as if he were encircled by a great ring of face, with one broad nose, one endless grinning mouth, and a single leering eye in the forehead. By and by the room began to spin round also--such, at least, was Yellow-cap's impression. Round and round it spun like a teetotum, moving as fast as the dancers did, but in the opposite direction. The smoke, driven together by these contrary motions, was whirled into a sort of hollow dome over Yellow-cap's head. The yellow light from the lamp shone upon that smoky dome, and its shape became defined more and more distinctly, until at last it hung poised in air--a gigantic image of the very yellow cap which Yellow-cap wore.