A riotous noise ensued; rough throats rang changes on the question.

Order restored, it was evident that the speech was over.
Thrown violently out of his concept, the auctioneer struck and struck at his palm--in vain; nothing would come.

So, making the best of a bad job, he irately sat down in favour of his successor on the programme.
This speaker did not fare much better.

The assemblage, roused now, jolly and merciless, was not disposed to give quarter; and his obtuseness in dawdling over such high-flown notions as that population, not property, formed the basis of representative government, reaped him a harvest of boos and groans.

This was not what the diggers had come out to hear.