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gone mad," gasped Kennedy.
Whether he had or not, it is certain that the gallery had. All the evening they had been stewing in an atmosphere like that of the inner room of a Turkish bath, and they were ready for anything. It needed but a trifle to set them off. The lilt of that unspeakable Yankee melody supplied that trifle. Kay's malcontents, huddled in their seats by the window, were the first to break out. Feet began to stamp in time to the music—softly at first, then more loudly. The wooden dais gave out the sound like a drum.
Other rioters joined in from the right. The noise spread through the gallery as a fire spreads through gorse. Soon three hundred pairs of well-shod feet were rising and falling. Somebody began to whistle. Everybody whistled. Mr. Kay was on his feet, gesticulating wildly. His words were lost in the uproar.
For five minutes the din prevailed. Then, with a final crash, Fenn finished. He got up from the music-stool, bowed, and walked back to his place by the senior door. The musical efforts of the gallery changed to a storm of cheering and clapping.
The choir rose to begin the next piece.
Still the noise continued.
People began to leave the Hall—in ones and twos first, then in a steady stream which blocked the doorways. It was plain to the dullest intelligence that if there was going to be any more concert, it would have to be performed in dumb show. Mr. Kay flung down his baton.
The visitors had left by now, and the gallery was beginning to follow their example, howling as it went.
"Well," said Jimmy Silver cheerfully, as he went with Kennedy down the steps, "I think we may call that a record. By my halidom, there'll be a row about this later on."
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