"Why in Zeelup?" corrected the Teacup, from above, in a tremulous,weeping voice; but even had it been louder it would have been drownedin the clamor that rose from the tables.
"Silence, impudent clown!" roared the fat, fierce-lookingMultiplicand. "Ignoramus! nothing of music! Why, you don't know CommonTime!"
Sara quaked; only yesterday she had got all tangled up trying to tellthe difference between three-four time and two-four time; and she knewSchlorge was wrong and the dreadful creature was right. But Schlorgewas beside himself with fury and beyond the reach of fear or reason.
"Oh, go on!" he shouted fiercely. "You don't know nothing about theinsides of music--that's only the outsides! Besides, what time does abird sing by? That's music, ain't it?"
But before the Multiplicand could answer, his henchman, the Multiplier,called out, "And what do you know of art, Oaf? Don't you know thatmodern art is colored geometry?"
"And poetry?" squeaked the Quotient, fiercely, "Don't poets have tocount their feet to write poems?"
But at that juncture they were all electrified to see Avrilliastepping forward, looking so beautiful and so queenly and sotransfigured by righteous indignation that even the invaders merelyblinked. "Not modern poets," she said, with an icy authority that senta hostile shiver up and down the multiplication tables. "They do notcount anything--not even the cost."
It was not so much what Avrillia said, as the way she said it, and theway she looked, that cowed even the all-powerful invaders for amoment. Pirlaps, at her side, said, "Good for you, Avrillia!" underhis breath; and Schlorge glared at the Fractions with triumphant scornand continued,
"Like leaves of the forest when summer is green Our beautiful Garden at sunset was seen; Like leaves of the forest when autumn is flown, You see it this morning all withered and strown."
As he finished this stanza Schlorge seemed to rise to twice his fullheight (indeed, he seemed to Sara for a moment almost half as tall asher waist) in his eloquent fury, as he continued:
"But we will lambast you, you straight-waisted pigs, As sure as black's yellow and thistles is figs! Yea, surer than squashes our vengeance we'll wreak; If it isn't today, why, we'll do it next week!"
The Garden of the Plynck Page 6