and the begavelled people stopped occasionally and pounded on the steps using their gavels and sometimes crashed their gavels atop each others heads and some thought this was funny and some thought it , musical and lyrical and there , were great orchestras of a great and many gavels and people blew into the , ir gavels and fiddled their gavels and plucked at , their gavels ; and the noise of the courthouse steps thought the brownback something old and something fierce .