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In any case he deserves peculiar praise for one thing: in the midst of all this talking and toasting he it was who first of all bethought him of raising his glass in honour of two young men who were not actually present to wit Count Stephen and Count Rudolf; and he so worthily extolled the superlative merits of these gentlemen, as to evoke an unprecedented burst of enthusiasm, the very ladies themselves seizing brimmers and clinking them with him.
Presently it faded; the hot iron was whisked upon the anvil, fiery sparks showered about as the rapid blows fell, and the echoing crags kept time with rhythmic beats to the clanking of the sledge and the clinking of the hand-hammer.
But when a few hundred yards farther on he stood still again to listen, his heart stood still also, for he heard from that space of rugged stones the clinking crutch and labouring feet of the infernal cripple. The sky above was loaded with the clouds of snow, leaving London in a darkness and oppression premature for that hour of the evening.
"Nobody's ready yet. You're hours ahead of time." Presley came into the bedroom, his huge spur clinking on the straw matting. Annixter was without coat, vest or collar, his blue silk suspenders hung in loops over either hip, his hair was disordered, the crown lock stiffer than ever. "Glad to see you, old boy," he announced, as Presley came in. "No, don't shake hands, I'm all lather.
He paused at this point, and we all drew long breaths, wondering what was coming next. There was no denying it, the "cracked Teacup" was clinking a little false, so it seemed to the company. Yet, after all, the fancy was not delirious, the mind could follow it well enough; let him go on. What do you say to this? You have heard all sorts of things said in prose and verse about Niagara.
In places the ground looks like a chip-yard, the chips dry and white as though bleached by the sun. The eye is deceived; chips these surely are, you think, but the ear corrects this impression, for as your feet strike the fragments, the clinking sound proves that they are stone.
"Well," he said, "seeing we have won the Raeburn, you and I, I think we might." He heard her fumbling in the distant pantry. He smiled to himself as he listened to the clinking glass, and, "By Jove," said he, "a mother's a fine thing!" "Where's Janet?" he asked when she returned. He wanted another worshipper. "Oh, she gangs to bed the moment it's dark," his mother complained, like one aggrieved.
"Be brave," she cried, "you yet may be our guest, Our haunted room was ever held the best. If, then, your valour can the sight sustain Of rustling curtains and the clinking chain If your courageous tongue have powers to talk, When round your bed the horrid ghost shall walk If you dare ask it why it leaves its tomb, I'll see your sheets well air'd, and show the Room." True Story.
In the meantime, as Shadwell relates, the rakes "live as much by their wits as ever; and to avoid the clinking dun of a boxkeeper, at the end of one act they sneak to the opposite side 'till the end of another; then call the boxkeeper saucy rascal, ridicule the poet, laugh at the actors, march to the opera, and spunge away the rest of the evening."
So our sleep in that palace hotel was achieved to the accompaniment of clinking billiard-balls, the clatter of drinking-glasses, the shaking up of iced mixtures, and the sharp voices of disputants at the card-tables.
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