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But Toad only shook his head gently, raised one paw in mild protest, and, by pressing delicacies on his guests, by topical small-talk, and by earnest inquiries after members of their families not yet old enough to appear at social functions, managed to convey to them that this dinner was being run on strictly conventional lines. He was indeed an altered Toad!
There was fire and light in the dining-room at Blodgett's from seven to nine always, and in the parlour with the pianola on Saturday evening and all day Sunday. Sometimes, even on week days after supper, J. Wilkinson would open the door into the darkened room, push away the pianola and sing topical songs to his own accompaniment until his stiffened fingers clattered on the keys.
He used to drop into his speeches little topical allusions and local "gags" which, though Greek to the uninitiated, never failed to produce a roar: and a political speaker who can unfailingly make his audience laugh with him not at him has gone far on the road to success.
"And why," Miss Tavish asked, "will the serpentine dances and the London topical songs do any more harm to women than to men?" "And besides, Mr. Delancy," Carmen said, chiming in, "isn't it just as proper that women should see women dance and throw somersaults on the stage as that men should see them? And then, you know, women are such a restraining influence."
But the sailor's susceptibilities are peculiar: they were there to enjoy themselves, and again and again a great gust of laughter swept over the audience as an autumn gale convulses the trees on the outskirts of a forest. The singer's topical allusions, sly incomprehensibilities, he flung about him like bombs that burst in an unfailing roar of delight among his shipmates.
Is there any wonder that a wrathful and uneasy Minister, not yet overthrown, shortly took stringent measures against the 'liberty' of the stage; measures by which a political stage censorship was formally established, and the topical gaiety of our theatre, and the pungency of our theatrical announcements, henceforth immeasurably dulled.
He had in his mind the self-governing Colonies, whose fortunes and future were to him a source of perpetual interest. He loved travel, and as soon as he had shaken off the burden of Carlyle he took a voyage round the world, described, not always with topical accuracy, in Oceana. The name of this delightful volume is of course taken from Harrington, More's successor in the days of the Commonwealth.
But our choice upon this occasion had fallen upon the most famous of the old halls. Of the performance I remember a topical song which evoked enthusiastic applause. It was an incredibly stupid piece of doggerel about England's position in the world; and the shiny-faced exquisite who declaimed it strutted to and fro like a bantam cock at each fresh roar of applause from the heated house.
At my request, the drumming on the cone kept time to "Dixey" and "Yankee Doodle," and at length I said to "the spirit": "You must have liked topical songs when you were on the earth-plane." Instantly the cone was swept violently from the table, and a deep, jovial, strong whisper came from the horn to me. "I do now," was the amazing answer. "Who are you?" I asked. "Wilbur Thompson."
The language betrays, as in the case of the author's eclogues, a pseudo-archaism, which points, particularly in such phrases as 'doe ycleape, to a perhaps unfortunate study of Spenser. Occasionally we meet with topical allusions, for instance the thrust at Taylor put into the mouth of the rude Cancrone: Farewell ye rockes and seas, I thinke yee'l shew it That Sicelie affords a water-Poet.
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