It would never do.

I cleared any throat--which was to have been free from frogs--and a strange, hoarse voice, no more like mine than a crow is like a nightingale, came out with a jerk, about six feet away, and remarked, as if surprised: "Hail!" With a desperate effort, I resolved that this night or never I was to achieve greatness.

I cleared the way again and recommenced: "Hail!" A boy's voice at the back of the room was heard to insinuate that perhaps it would be easier for me to let it snow or rain.

That made me angry.

I was as cool as ice all in a moment; I felt that I had the mastery of the situation, and, making a sweeping gesture with my left hand, I looked over my hearers' heads, and continued: "Hail! Fabbletown, bare village of the plain--Babbletown, fair pillage of the vain--.