8 P.M.
Now , upon Adair Street the Expulsion had brought despair , the second-reading now assured , the Jews ' vote over , and new writs issued ; the second-reading debate was actually in progress at that date of the Oxford visit ; and though the four yachts , copies of the _ Mahomet II _ , were being rapidly put together , the Bill , if at all pressed , must get through before they could be ready ; nor could the House of Lords long delay its passage . There remained Harris , so far ineffectual , but not therefore hopeless : so he , spurred , went down to Oxford . But what Harris could not do was to get near to Hogarth : his task was , as it were , to pluck Venus from the firmament ; but he mused , he mused upon her , with musing astrologic eye , with grand patience , fascinated by her very splendours , not without hope . When at 8 P.M. a banquet was served to 250 guests in the Radcliffe Library , the upper gallery being open to a crawling public to see the lions feed , Harris , watching thence the unattainable under the blue of the canopy -- blue always in honour of the Sea -- thought within himself : `` Ah , Mr. 76 , you 've got it all , ai n't you ? -- for the time being . But ` ow 'd you feel if I had a pistol now ? Gawd !