Wilder Perkins: Hoare and the matter of treason

Now, at last, Hoare burst into laughter. His laugh could not be heard, for it, too, was mute; a fascinated, poetically inclined maiden, fresh from the schoolroom, had once described it as "like a pair of waltzing snowflakes."

At this point, the little orchestra at the end of the ballroom struck up a cheerful little tune that Hoare remembered from his days on the North America station. It had been quite the rage then, back in '81. until it had been cast into disrepute as the air to which the British garrison of Yorktown marched out to make their surrender to Mr. Washington:

"If buttercups buzzed after the bee,

If boats were on land,

Churches on sea,

If ponies rode men,

And if grass ate the corn,

And cats should be chased

Into holes by the mouse,

If the mammas sold their babies

To the gypsies for half a crown,

If summer were spring

And the other way 'round,

Then all the world would be upside down"

In a glow of mutual forgiveness, Captain Bartholomew Hoare and Miss Jane Austen tripped on down the set behind Mr. Clay and Miss Anne Gladden, to the merry lilt of "The World Turned Upside Down."