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“Charles Martel, with all the honors.”

But the explosion of Toad-in-the-hole, together with the uproarious cheers for the grandpapa of Charlemagne, had now made the company unmanageable. The orchestra was again challenged with shouts the stormiest for the new glee. I made again a powerful effort to overrule the challenge. I might as well have talked to the winds. I foresaw a tempestuous evening; and I ordered myself to be strengthened with three waiters on each side; the vice-president with as many. Symptoms of unruly enthusiasm were beginning to show out; and I own that I myself was considerably excited as the orchestra opened with its storm of music, and the impassioned glee began–“Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the-hole–Ubi est ille Reporter?” And the frenzy of the passion became absolutely convulsing, as the full chorus fell in–“Et iteratum est ab omnibus–Non est inventus”

By this time I saw how things were going: wine and music were making most of the amateurs wild. Particularly Toad-in-the-hole, though considerably above a hundred years old, was getting as vicious as a young leopard. It was a fixed impression with the company that he had murdered the reporter in the year 1812; since which time (viz. twenty-six years) “ille reporter” had been constantly reported “Non est inventus.” Consequently, the glee about himself, which of itself was most tumultuous and jubilant, carried him off his feet. Like the famous choral songs amongst the citizens of Abdera, nobody could hear it without a contagious desire for falling back into the agitating music of “Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the-hole,” etc. I enjoined vigilance upon my assessors, and the business of the evening proceeded.

The next toast was–The Jewish Sicarii.

Upon which I made the following explanation to the company:–“Gentlemen, I am sure it will interest you all to hear that the assassins, ancient as they were, had a race of predecessors in the very same country. All over Syria, but particularly in Palestine, during the early years of the Emperor Nero, there was a band of murderers, who prosecuted their studies in a very novel manner. They did not practise in the night-time, or in lonely places; but justly considering that great crowds are in themselves a sort of darkness by means of the dense pressure and the impossibility of finding out who it was that gave the blow, they mingled with mobs everywhere; particularly at the great paschal feast in Jerusalem; where they actually had the audacity, as Josephus assures us, to press into the temple,–and whom should they choose for operating upon but Jonathan himself, the Pontifex Maximus? They murdered him, gentlemen, as beautifully as if they had had him alone on a moonless night in a dark lane. And when it was asked, who was the murderer, and where he was”–

“Why, then, it was answered,” interrupted Toad-in-the-hole, “Non est inventus.” And then, in spite of all I could do or say, the orchestra opened, and the whole company began–“Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the-hole–Ubi est ille Sicarius? Et responsum est ab omnibus–Non est inventus.”

When the tempestuous chorus had subsided, I began again:–“Gentlemen, you will find a very circumstantial account of the Sicarii in at least three different parts of Josephus; once in Book XX. sect. v. c. 8, of his Antiquities; once in Book I. of his Wars: but in sect. 10 of the chapter first cited you will find a particular description of their tooling. This is what he says–‘They tooled with small scymetars not much different from the Persian acinacae, but more curved, and for all the world most like the Roman sickles or sicae.’ It is perfectly magnificent, gentlemen, to hear the sequel of their history. Perhaps the only case on record where a regular army of murderers was assembled, a justus exercitus, was in the case of these Sicarii. They mustered in such strength in the wilderness, that Festus himself was obliged to march against them with the Roman legionary force.”