The cry was then for the Colonel; on which Barnes Newcome, who had been drinking much, started up with something like an oath, crying, "Oh, I can't stand this." "Then leave it, confound you!" said young Clive, with fury in his face.
"If our company is not good for you, why do you come into it ?" "What's that ?" asks Barnes, who was evidently affected by wine.

Bayham roared "Silence!" and Barnes Newcome, looking round with a tipsy toss of the head, finally sate down.
The Colonel sang, as we have said, with a very high voice, using freely the falsetto, after the manner of the tenor singers of his day.

He chose one of his maritime songs, and got through the first verse very well, Barnes wagging his head at the chorus, with a "Bravo!" so offensive that Fred Bayham, his neighbour, gripped the young man's arm, and told him to hold his confounded tongue.
The Colonel began his second verse: and here, as will often happen to amateur singers, his falsetto broke down.

He was not in the least annoyed, for I saw him smile very good-naturedly; and he was going to try the verse again, when that unlucky Barnes first gave a sort of crowing imitation of the song, and then burst into a yell of laughter.
Clive dashed a glass of wine in his face at the next minute, glass and all; and no one who had watched the young man's behaviour was sorry for the insult.
I never saw a kind face express more terror than Colonel Newcome's.
He started back as if he had himself received the blow from his son.
"Gracious God!" he cried out.

"My boy insult a gentleman at my table!" "I'd like to do it again," says Clive, whose whole body was trembling with anger.
"Are you drunk, sir ?" shouted his father.
"The boy served the young fellow right, sir," growled Fred Bayham in his deepest voice.