Impromptu meetings were held at every house in turn to discuss the coming event, and the latest bits of information regarding it were retailed with embellishments proportionate to the imagination of the accidental narrator.

Not a soul in Joppa but knew every proposed feature of the entertainment better than the hosts themselves.

The old people said it would be damp and rheumatic and would certainly be the death of them.

The young people said it would be divine, and quite worth dying for.

The people who were neither old nor young said nobody could tell how it would be till after it was over, and they felt it their duty to go to look after the others.