And hurrying to the rescue of my friends, McClure, looking now a bit bored and resentful, landed me somewhere near the ceiling.
It would have been laughable if it had not been ignominious.

I took my discomfiture with the bad grace of silence throughout the stiff, formal and brief meal which was then announced.

But when it was over and the party, risen from table, was about to disperse I collected my energies and resources for a final stroke.

I was not willing to remain so crushed nor to confess myself so beaten, though I could not disguise from myself a feeling that all of us had been overmatched.
"McClure," said I with the cool and quiet resolution of despair, drawing him aside, "what in the -- -- do you want anyhow ?" He looked at me with swift intelligence and a sudden show of sympathy, and then over at the others with a withering glance.
"What?
With those cranks?
Nothing." Jupiter descended to earth.

I am afraid we actually took a glass of wine together.