Hoots and yells assailed him, fists were shaken at him, canes were
brandished menacingly.
"Assassin! Scoundrel! Coward! Traitor!"
But he braved the storm, smiling upon them his ineffable contempt.
He was waiting for the noise to cease; waiting to address them in
his turn. But he waited in vain, as he very soon perceived.
The contempt he did not trouble to dissemble served but to goad
them on.
In the pit pandemonium was already raging. Blows were being freely
exchanged; there were scuffling groups, and here and there swords
were being drawn, but fortunately the press was too dense to permit
of their being used effectively. Those who had women with them and
the timid by nature were making haste to leave a house that looked
like becoming a cockpit, where chairs were being smashed to provide
weapons, and parts of chandeliers were already being used as missiles.
One of these hurled by the hand of a gentleman in one of the boxes
narrowly missed Scaramouche where he stood, looking down in a sort
of grim triumph upon the havoc which his words had wrought.
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