They sped up, talking and shrieking in a pointed fashion with many exaggerated glances back at Harry and Cho, leaving an embarrassed silence in their wake.
Above this table was an oval barometer with a black border enlivened with gilt bands, on which the flies had so licentiously disported themselves that the gilding had become problematical.
There was something so irresistible in the Gadfly's grave absurdities that those who most disapproved of and disliked him laughed as immoderately at all his squibs as did his warmest partisans.