"I carried the whole thing a little too far!"
"One cannot but feel that some of your ideas are a little morbid."
"My ideas!"
To my surprise, and also to my indignation, a chorus of voices rose
from round the table, all, actually, condemning me.
"Certainly!"
"Beyond all reason!"
"Show a disordered imagination!"
"Monstrous that we should have to submit to them!"
"If we'd had the faintest notion of what you proposed to do we should
none of us ever have come."
"Gentlemen," I shouted, "I protest that my ideas have not been carried
out."
"Not in their entirety," the man Finlayson had the audacity to retort.
"The notion that corpses should be scattered about the room, and that
we should sit in coffins, and wear graveclothes, was a little--it
really was a little, don't you think?"
"Mr Finlayson, do you dare to affirm that I--I--suggested that there
should be corpses in the room, and coffins, and--and graveclothes? I
have no hesitation in affirming that a more abominable insinuation I
never heard."
The objectionable stranger to whom allusion has already been made rose
from his chair.
"At last, Mr Short, I do agree with you. The business is an abominable
one from beginning to end. As our President you have subjected us to a
series of outrages against which it is our duty to protest in the most
forcible manner."
"Hear! hear!" muttered someone. I do not know what ridiculous person it
was.
"The most effective protest we can offer," continued the preposterous
stranger, "is to at once leave the room. And that I for one shall
instantly proceed to do. Those gentlemen who think with me will no
doubt follow my example. You will be left to enjoy an orgie which a
mentally, morally, and physically diseased imagination alone could have
conceived."
Nearly every person present stood upon his feet. There were all sorts
of exclamations.
"Hear! hear!"
"Bravo!"
"Excellently said!"
"Serve him right!"