"Erb"

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This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler

[Picture: Book cover]

"E R B"

By W. Pett Ridge

[Picture: Decorative graphic]

New York D. Appleton And Company 1902

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Copyright, 1902 By D. Appleton And Company

_All rights reserved_

_Published October_, 1902.

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Chapter I

"BUT I am reminded," shouted the scarlet-faced man on the chair, still keeping his voice to the high note on which he had started, "I am reminded that my time is exhausted. Another talented speaker is 'ere to address you. I refer to our friend Barnes--better known per'aps to all of you as Erb."

The crescent-shaped crowd, growling applause, gave signs of movement, and a round-faced young man, standing at the side of the chair, looked up modestly at the sky.

"He, as you all know, 'ails from the district of Berminsey, where he exercises a certain amount of influence, and, in spite of his youth, is recognised as a positive power in the labour world. He is accustomed to hit straight from the shoulder, and he fears neether friend nor foe. I am going to tell you some'ing you very like don't know, and there's no necessity for it to go any further; that is that he stands a vurry good chance of being made the secretary of a new society. Friends! without further remarks from me, I call upon Comrade Barnes, better known as Erb, to address you. Thanks."

The man stepped down from the chair. "Where's my hat been and gone?" he asked. "Someone's shifted it."

The hour being half past twelve, the crowd had no business of an urgent nature for thirty minutes. A few strolled away to join other groups, and Herbert Barnes, as he took off his bowler hat and stepped upon the green chair, watched these sternly. Southwark Park was being wooed by the morning sun of spring-time, the green fresh grass covered a space that was here and there protected by warning boards; the trees, after a shivering winter, were clothing themselves with a suit of new leaves. Away to the right, masts of shipping in the Surrey Commercial Docks showed high and gaunt above the middle-aged trees that fringed the park: on the other side rows of small houses pressed closely. A few light-haired Scandinavian sailors looked on amiably; timber-carrying men, who showed a horny skin at the back of their necks, as badges of their labour, made up, with railway men in unaccustomed mufti, the rest of the group. The new speaker's features relaxed slightly as he saw two girls, conspicuous in the presence of so many men, join his audience, to resume his earlier manner when one exclaimed disappointedly, "Oh, it's only joring!" and both strolled away towards a bed of flaming tulips. A tall young woman, slightly lame, took their place.

"Friends," said Erb, very quietly, "I was not altogether prepared to be called upon for an address this morning, but--All right, my lad," this in reply to an appeal from the outside of the crescent, "I'll speak up presently. I'll speak up when I'm ready, in a way that'll make even you understand me." The line of speakers near the chair smiled, and the interjector's friends remarked gleefully that this was one in the eye for him. "I say that I came 'ere to this park this morning," he went on, raising his voice defiantly, and smoothing his obstinate hair with one hand, "more as a listener than a teacher, more ready to learn from others than to learn them anything myself." The tall young person on the edge of the crowd winced. "But as I have been called upon, I shall take the liberty of askin' you one or two very straight questions. My friend from Camberwell, who preceded, referred to me as one accustomed to hit straight from the shoulder; that's the way I'm going to play the game this morning. I stand up 'ere," he said, commencing to finger the buttons of his waistcoat, "as a working man addressing his fellow working men. Prouder titles there can never be, and if they was to offer to make me Lord Mayor of London at this present moment I should make answer to the effect that I preferred to be a working man." A voice on the outside asked where he worked? "I am a parcels carman on a railway I am, and I earn twenty-three shillings and sixpence a week." A voice said it was a shame to pay a van-boy the money earned by grown men; Herbert Barnes flushed at this and went on. The voice, deluded, threw at him another remark. "Was he" (asked the voice), "was he a half-timer?"

"I'm going to spare one minute with this chap," said Erb, turning suddenly. "Bring him forward! Stand back from him then, if he's too shy for that, and let's see who we're dealing with. Oh, it's you, is it?"

"Yus," admitted the owner of the voice resentfully, "it is me."

"You don't look 'appy," said Erb.

"I've been listening to you," explained the man.

"Take your 'ands out of your pockets and let's 'ave a look at them." The man turned to go, but the circle declined to permit this. "Take a sight at his little hansy-pansy." Order complied with. "What d'you make of 'em?" "Soft," retorted the expert. "I knew he was a loafer," said Erb. "Let him go now and prop up his favourite pubs; I want to talk to genuine working men, not to bits of touch-wood. My first question is," here he referred to the notes on the back of an envelope which he held in his hand, "my first question is, what is it we working men most keenly desire at the present moment?"

"Tankard of bitter," said someone.

"Ah!" Herbert Barnes whirled round, and pointed a forefinger at the humorist and his friends. "_There's_ a man who speaks the truth. _There's_ a man what says jest the thing he really thinks. _There's_ a man who utters that which is uppermost in his mind. _There's_ a man," he leaned forward as though about to give one last applauding compliment, "whose 'ighest ambition, whose most elevated thought, whose one supreme anxiety is for a tankard of bitter. Friends," with a whirl of both arms, "we talk about the tyranny and what not of capital; the enmity of the upper circles, but _there_, jest over _there_, is the class of man that is our greatest opponent, the man from whom we have most to fear. A ten-kard of bit-ter!" he repeated deliberately.

"Well, but," said the humorist in an injured tone, "I suppose a chep can open his mouth?"

"You can open your mouth, and when you do, apparently, it's generally for the purpose of em'tying down it a--"

He hesitated. The crowd, glad to find personalities introduced, gave the words in a muffled chorus.

"Makin' a bloomin' song of it," grumbled the humorist, going off. "Some people can't take a joke."

"'Aving finished with our friend," said Herbert Barnes, loudly, "we will now resume our attention to our original argument. What is it that the working man--"

His voice grew so much in volume that people at Christadelphian and other crowds near the iron gates deserted these, and came across in the hope of better sport. One of his arguments created some dissension, and two men, detaching themselves from the crescent, went off to debate it, and an interested circle formed around these, listening with almost pained interest, and seemingly (from the nodding of their heads) convinced by each argument in turn. The round-faced young man on the Windsor chair, now aiming the fist of one hand into the palm of the other as he laboured at an argument, and giving a tremendous and convincing thump as he made his point, noted the new crowd with approval: it was good to have said the stimulating thing. There were no interrupters now, but occasionally a voice would throw an approving sentence, caught neatly by Herbert Barnes, and used if he thought it wise or necessary; his best retorts were given with a glance at the one young woman of the crowd. He was in the middle of a long sentence decked out with many a paraphrase, and whole regiments of adjectives hurrying to the support of a noun, when the hem of his jacket was pulled, and he stopped. "Surely," he said, in an undertone, "the time ain't up?" The man next him replied, "Oh, ain't it though?" rather caustically.

"Friends," said Herbert resuming his quiet voice, "I'm afraid I've kept you rather long. We've had opportunities before of meetin' each other; we shall 'ave opportunities again. I 'ave only to add one word." The man next to him frowned up at him on hearing this ominous phrase. "It's my firm and steadfast opinion that we shall increase our power and magnify our strength only by sticking close, quite close, shoulder to shoulder, in what I may call the march of progress. Not otherwise shall we see the risin' sun salute the dawn--" (a momentary frown from the lame young woman had disconcerted him)--"of labour's triumph: not otherwise shall we--shall we--"

"Gain," prompted the young man next to him, sulkily.

"Gain--thank you--gain the respect of future ages and the admiration of posterity; not otherwise shall we lead others on in that battle which, to use the language of metaphor--"

"I say, old man," whispered his neighbour, "really! Play the game."

"I will not pursue the train of thought," said Erb, "on which I had, in a manner of speakin', embarked. One an' all, friends--thank you--kind 'tention--I now give way!"

"Feriends!" shouted the next man, stepping quickly on the chair, "our comrade from Berminsey has been so far carried away by his own eloquence as to overstep his time. In these circs, I will abstain from all preliminary remarks and come to the point at once. First of all, 'owever--"

The bowler-hatted men, who had spoken, seemed bored now with the proceedings, and tried to make out the exact time by the clock on the great biscuit factory; unable to do this, they appealed to Erb, who, heated with his oratorical efforts, and gratified to notice that the tall young woman had limped away directly that he had finished, produced a smart silver watch and gave the required information. They spoke in an undertone of the evening's engagements: one proud man was to turn on the gas, as he cheerfully expressed it, at Victoria Park in the afternoon, another had had a long talk with a member of Parliament, and the member had shaken hands with him, "Quite 'omely and affable"; they all presented to the crowd a very serious and thoughtful and statesmanlike appearance as they whispered to each other. Flakes of the crowd began to fall away. The last speaker finished, hoarse and panting.

"Whose turn is it to carry the chair?"

"Erb's!" said the others, quickly.

"But I thought--" he began.

"You thought wrong," said the others. "Besides you're going straight 'ome."

They walked across the grass to the gates near the station, where men and children, and men with babies perched on their shoulders, were making way back to the homes from which they had been temporarily expelled in order to give wives and mothers opportunity for concentrating minds on the preparation for dinner.

"No use trying to blister you for 'alf a pint, Erb?"

"Waste of time," said Erb.

"What d'you do with all your money?"

"I don't find no difficulty," he replied, "in getting rid of it. Any spare cash goes in books. I've got a reg'lar little library at 'ome. John Stuart Mill and Professor Wallace and Robert Owen, and goodness knows what all."

"The only reely sensible thing you've done, Erb," remarked one, "is not getting married."

"That's one of 'em," he admitted.

"You don't know what it is to be always buying boots for the kiddies."

"Don't want."

"You single men get it all your own way. Same time, it's a selfish life in my opinion. You don't live for the sake of anybody."

"I live for the sake of a good many people," said Erb, dodging into the road to evade a square of girls carrying hymn books, and returning with his chair to the pavement. "What I'm anxious to do is to see the world better and brighter, to organise either by word of mouth or otherwise--"

"Old man!" protested the others indignantly, "give us a rest. You ain't in the park now."

He gave up the wooden chair to one of the men, who took it inside the passage of a house in Upper Grange Road. The others stepped across to a public-house; he nodded and went on.

"Won't change your mind and 'ave one, Erb?"

"My mind," he called back, "is the one thing I never 'ardly change."

He did not relax his seriousness of demeanour until he had passed the high-walled enclosure of Bricklayers' Arms Goods Station and had turned into Page's Walk. There the fact was borne on the air that dinner-time was near, for attractive scents of cooking issued out of every doorway; he moved his lips appreciatively and hurried on with a more cheerful air. Women slipped along with their aprons hiding plates of well-baked joints and potatoes: children waited anxiously in doorways for the signal to approach the one gay, over-satisfying meal of the week, at which there was always an unusual exhibition of geniality and good temper that would eventually conciliate the worried mother, who had devoted the morning to providing the meal. Men returned from a morning at their clubs, where the hours had been chased by a third-rate music-hall entertainment; these walked slowly and hummed or whistled some enticing air with which they desired better acquaintance. Erb scraped his boots carefully on the edge of the pavement, and went up the stone steps of some model dwellings. From No. 17 came a broad hint of rabbit pie: a veiled suggestion of pickled pork.

"Well, young six foot," he said cheerfully, "is the banquet prepared, and are all our honoured guests assembled?"

"Wouldn't be you," remarked his short sister, quickly, "if you didn't come 'ome long before you were wanted." She stood on tiptoe and glanced at herself in the glass over the mantelpiece, and rolled up her sleeves again; her head was covered with steel hair-curlers, which had held it fiercely since the previous morning. "And me in me disables."

"You look all right," said Erb.

"I shall 'ave to be this afternoon."

"What's going to 'appen this afternoon?

"I told you!" remonstrated his sister. "My new young man's going to drop in for a cup of tea."

"Which?"

"I never have more than one at a time."

"You mean the one in the hat place in Southwark Street."

"Bah!" said his young sister contemptuously. "I gave him the sack weeks ago."

"You're always a choppin' and a changin'," said Erb tolerantly.

"If you weren't such a great gawk," remarked his sister, bending to peep into the oven, "you'd put the knives and forks, and not sit there like a--like a--I don't know what."

Erb pulled a drawer underneath the table and complied.

"The other way about, stupid," said the short girl wrathfully. "You don't take your knife in your left hand, do you? 'Pon me word, I often wonder that men was ever invented. I s'pose you've been talkin' yourself 'ungry, as usual?"

"I addressed a large meeting," said Erb, with a touch of his important manner, "for upwards of eleven minutes."

"Did they aim straight?"

"They were very appreciative," said Erb. "One chap that interrupted I went for with 'orse, foot, and artillery."

"Did you, though?" asked his short sister with reluctant admiration. "Make him squirm, eh, Erb? Did ye call him names, or did you say something about his nose?"

"I treated him with satire!"

"Weren't there ladies present, then?"

"There was one, as it happened."

"_She'd_ been better off at 'ome," remarked the girl severely. "The minx."

"She looked all right."

"You can't go by looks nowadays."

"A tremendous weapon satire in the 'ands of a clever man," said Erb exultantly, "takes the starch out of 'em like drenching with a fire 'ose. Am I supposed to stay on 'ere whilst this new chap of yours mops up his tea?"

"Unless me lady comes down from Eaton Square to lord it over us all."

"Nice occupation for a man of my--a man of my--"

"Don't say 'intellect,'" begged his sister. "Spoils me appetite if I laugh much before dinner."

A pleasure to watch the sister, her sleeves rolled up to the elbow, setting right the things on the table, placing, with the aid of an exact pair of eyes, the china cruet-stand at the very centre, fabricating some mustard in a teacup, and pouring it cleanly and carefully into the mustard-pot, glancing at the oven with an encouraging, "'Urry up there!" to the pie, and ever a wary look-out on the lid of the saucepan on the fire; the intervals she filled by complaining of the price of coals, by dusting the mantelpiece, by asking questions about the morning's speeches, and by explaining with great interest the trouble that came to a girl in her workshop consequent on accepting engagement rings from two young men at the same time. Presently the one right moment arrived, and out came the rabbit pie, with a crust not to be equalled for lightness and flakiness in Page's Walk, where, indeed, experiments in the higher walks of cookery usually proved so disastrous as to lead to domestic contention and a review of all the varied grievances that had accumulated throughout the ages. Erb, at the head of the table, cut the pie, and his young sister sat at the side, with one foot on the insecure support, so that the table scarcely wobbled under this trying operation; there ensued some argument because Erb wanted to place both of the kidneys on her plate, and his sister would not hear of this, but a compromise was effected by sharing these dainties fairly and equally. His sister said grace.

"For what we are 'bout 'ceive, Lord make us truly thankful for."

"Well?" she asked, rather nervously, as Erb took his first mouthful. Erb tasted with the air of a connoisseur.

"I've tasted worse," he said.

"I was afraid how it was going to turn out," confessed his sister with relief. "It's long since I tried my 'and at a pie."

"There's nothing anyone can't do in this so-called life of ours," said Erb oracularly, "providin' that we put our best into it. We've all been endowed--"

"Pickle pork all right?"

"The pickle pork isn't nearly so bad as it might be," said Erb. "They couldn't beat it in Eaton Square. As I was saying, the human brain--"

"If Alice comes down from Eaton Square this afternoon in anything new," said his young sister definitely, "I shall simply ignore it. In fact, I shall say, 'Oh, you havn't got anything new for the spring then yet?' That," said the girl gleefully, "that'll make her aspirate her aitches."

"We mustn't forget that she's our sister."

"She'd like to get it out of her memory. Being parlourmaid in Eaton Square, and about five foot ten from top to toe, don't entitle anybody to come down 'ere to Page's Walk and act about as though Bricklayers' Arms Station belonged to them. After all, she's only a servant, Erb; there's no getting away from that. She doesn't get her evenings to herself like I do. Compared with her, I'm almost independent, mind you. I may 'ave to work 'ard in the day, I don't deny it, but after seven o'clock at night I'm me own mistress, and I can go out and about jest as I jolly well like. Tip up the dish, and take some more gravy."

"As a matter of fact you come 'ome 'ere, and you work about and get the place ready against me coming 'ome."

"And why shouldn't I?" demanded his young sister warmly, "if I like to? Can't I please meself? I'd a jolly sight rather do that than go and wait at table on a lot of over-dressed or under-dressed people, and obliged to keep a straight face whatever silly things you might 'ear them say. Is there a little bit more of the crust you can spare me?"

"I quite admit," said Erb, supplying her offered plate, "that to me there is something distasteful--"

"I only put the leastest bit of onion in."

"I'm referrin' now to the arrangement by which those who possess riches are able to call upon the working portion of the population to enable them to live idle, slothful lives. I may be wrong, but it seems to me--"

"I don't blame them," remarked his sister quickly, with her involuntary twitching of the head. "I should do the same if I was in their place. Tapioca pudding, Erb, for after. How does that strike you?"

"A tapioca and me," said Erb genially, "have always been on speaking terms. I can always do with a tapioca. A tapioca and me are good chums. Don't forget your stout."

"Wish I was."

"What I mean is, don't forget to drink it. My friend Payne, by the way, may call with a message."

"I'd as lief take doctor's stuff," said his sister with a wry face. "What's Payne calling about?"

"Orgenisation," answered Erb mysteriously.

"Oh," she said casually, "_that_ rot."

"You'll have a lay down after dinner."

"I shall be busy," answered his sister, "making meself good-looking."

"You'll have a lay down," Erb repeated firmly. "Besides, you look all right. Your face is a bit white, but," with a burst of compliment, "you'd pass in a crowd. No cheese for me. _You_ 'ave some."

"I've done, thanks." She bowed her head and spoke rapidly in an undertone "F," "What we _have_ received the Lord make us--"

The fact that the tall sister from Eaton Square called before Louisa had changed and taken her hair out of curlers was attributed by Louisa to the tall sister's unvarying desire to see Page's Walk at its worst, to find thus excuse for showering upon it her contempt. Alice, from a lofty height added to by an astonishing hat from which Louisa could not, in spite of herself, keep her eyes, complained bitterly to her sister of the state of Old Kent Road, upbraided Erb for the impudence of a 'bus conductor who, because she had talked a little on the way, offered to carry her on to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum without extra charge. "The vulgar humour of these poor men," said Alice, unnecessarily dusting a chair before sitting down, "appals one." She mentioned that the Eaton Square coachman had offered to drive her anywhere she wanted to go, but that, for various reasons, into which she preferred not to enter, she had declined.

"I've brought you a bottle of Burgundy, Louisa. You'll find it in my muff."

"To put on me 'andkerchief?" asked Louisa satirically.

The tall sister glanced appealingly first at the stolid Erb, then at the ceiling.

"I am on good terms with the housekeeper," she explained, "for the moment, and there is no difficulty in obtaining any little thing of this kind. And you're not looking well. You want picking up."

"_Your_ idea seems to be to give me a set down," said Louisa. "Going to take your things off?"

"I'll just loosen my jacket. I won't take it off, thank you."

"You know the state of the lining better than I do. Erb, you're silent all at once."

"I was thinking," said Erb, going across the room and taking the bottle from its resting place. "How much does a bottle of Burgundy wine like this run into, Alice?"

An exclamation came from the short girl as the tall sister took a pair of pince-nez from her breast, and, with great care, put on these new decorations in order to assist her in giving the answer.

"A bottle like that would 'run into,'" she explained with a short laugh as she quoted Erb, "about, what shall I say, six or seven shillings."

"You can take it back," he said shortly.

"Bra-vo, Erb," whispered Louisa.

"I'm not going to be indebted," said Erb, leaning his fists on the deal table, "to Eaton Square or any other haunt of the aristocracy for philanthropy of any kind or description whatever, not even when they are not aware that they're giving anything away. I should be stultifying meself if I did. If Louisa or me wants Burgundy we can buy it at the grocer's, and, if necessary, go as far as to drink it, with the satisfied feeling that we're not beholden to any one. Eh, Louisa?"

"You've hit it in once," agreed the short sister. "Cigar or coker-nut?"

"Therefore, whilst thankin' you, one and all, for your doubtless well-meant kindness, perhaps, Alice, you'll understand that my principles--"

"You needn't bang the table about," interrupted the tall sister.

"It's ours," retorted Louisa. "We can bang it if we like."

"My principles," repeated Erb with relish, "prevent me from accepting anything whatsoever concerning which I have reason to believe that it had not been acquired, or bought, or paid for by the party at whose hands--at whose hands-"

"That's right, Erb," said Louisa encouragingly.

"At whose hands that gift is, so to speak, attempted to be bestowed."

"I shall look pretty," protested Alice, "carrying that about all the evening."

"If it has that effect," said her short sister, "I don't see how you can grumble. Come in the bedroom and show me how you manage this new way of doing up the hair."

Erb read a chapter from Herbert Spencer whilst the girls were out of the room, well repaid if here and there he understood a sentence, or now and again caught sight of a view that soon eluded him. The book had been recommended by a speaker at the Liberal and Radical Club a few Sundays before, an Honourable Somebody, whose proud boast it was that he had unsuccessfully contested more seats at general and at bye-elections than any man belonging to his party, and who was, indeed, such an uncompromising bore, that he might well and appropriately have been subsidized by his very grateful opponents. The Honourable Somebody had also strongly recommended a book by Ruskin, and this, too, Erb had procured from the Free Library, but had given it up after a brief struggle, confessing that it was a bit too thick even for him. Erb made notes on the back of parcels' waybills when he came on something that seemed to him lucid: smiled to think of the start his companions would give when they heard him say in a speech, "I am inclined to go with our friend Spencer and say with him--" conveying in this way an impression that his acquaintance with literature was so complete that he had but to pick and choose from the treasures of his memory in order to give an illuminating quotation. He had made a bag of five when his sisters returned to the front room; Louisa without her fierce hair curlers, her head decked out in a new fashion, and more amiable in her attitude towards her sister, and, indeed, holding her arm affectionately. Alice, with her hat off, slightly less austere, took up Erb's book with a word of apology and remarked, "Oh, yes!" in the manner of one recognising an old companion.

"Read it?"

"Well," said the tall sister, "I have not exactly read it, but I have heard of it. Two of our young ladies talk about it sometimes at meals: Lady Frances declares she can't understand half of it."

"It's easy enough," said Erb, "once you get the hang of the thing."

"What are the young ladies like, Alice, at your new place?" asked the short sister at the looking-glass.

"I've often been going to tell you, but you'd never listen," complained Alice.

"Tell us now!"

They all became much interested in this subject, and even Erb put some elucidating questions. Louisa looked admiringly at her tall sister as Alice went from this to the subject of visitors to Eaton Square: young Lady Frances, it seemed, occasionally gave mixed dinners, where no one knew anybody else, and even Lady Frances herself did not insist on previous acquaintance: the passport to these was notoriety. From this subject to the servants' coming party of the following Thursday week was an easy stage. Thursday had been selected to fit the convenience of certain visitors whose establishments on that day closed early.

"Another foot or so," said Louisa gazing up at her sister, "and _I_ might 'ave been in your shoes."

"Height isn't the only thing required. We shall be rather short of gentlemen, by the bye."

"I can quite understand that."

"I suppose, Erb," said Alice to her brother doubtfully, "you wouldn't care to come if I got you an invite? If you did, you'd have to remember that I told them you were an inspector: you mustn't make me look like a story-teller."

"Not much in my line," growled Erb. "Besides, I've got a big job coming on that I mustn't tell you anything further about jest now."

"I'd get you asked, Louisa," she said candidly to her short sister, "if you looked better than you do. I don't think your work does you any good."

"I'm not in it for me health," retorted the other, her head giving its involuntary shake.

"I've advised her to try something else," agreed Erb, walking up and down the room. "She's only a bit of a girl, and the circumstances under which our female workers are compelled to carry on their duties amount to a species of white slavery which would not be tolerated in Russia."

"Loud cheers!" commented Louisa. "It's about time my young man was 'ere. If he can't keep his appointments I shall have to talk to him straight."

As though in answer to this threat a loud single knock came at the door.

"Let him wait a bit," said Louisa. "Do him good."

Another knock came and the girl went to the door to upbraid the caller for unmannerly impatience. She withdrew her head quickly.

"It's Payne," she announced to her brother.

"Deuce it is!" said Erb with excitement.

In the passage stood a man with a stiff, short, red beard, his upper lip shaven; near to him, a newer arrival, a nervous youth, with a wired flower in his coat, who asked shyly whether Miss Barnes happened by any chance to be at home.

"Trot in," said Erb, jerking his head. The nervous youth took off his hat and obeyed. "Well, Payne, old man," said Erb to the other.

"I've won the three old 'uns over," whispered the man with the red beard.

"Good on you!"

"They'll sign to-morrow."

"And if the answer ain't satisfactory?"

"Then," said Payne in an undertone, with his hand guarding the words at his mouth, "then they'll follow our lead."

"And strike?"

"And strike!" said Payne.

Chapter II

LONDON starts its day as freshly as the country, and in the early hours of a spring morning, before the scent of the tanning-yards is awake, even Bermondsey seems pure and bright. The loads of vegetables strolling up Old Kent Road, the belated pockets of last year's hops coming, roped sky high, out of the gates of the goods station; the rapid barrows returning from Covent Garden with supplies of flowers and fruit for suburban shops--all these help. At half-past seven comes a transition period. The day's work has begun and it has not begun. Every five minutes increases the haste of those who come out of the giant model dwellings, and up from the tributary roads; girls, as they run, stab at their hats; men, at a trot, endeavour in vain to light their pipes, but continue trying as they go, because matches are cheap and time is priceless. The law of compensation asserts itself: those who were merry last night and stayed out until half-past twelve to sing their way joyously home are, in the morning, thoughtful or surly, whilst those who eluded the attractions of the club or public-house rally them with much enjoyment on their obvious depression.

Erb, after the exaltation of Sunday night's meeting in St. George's Road, where his unreasonable hope to see again the tall, lame girl had been disappointed, but where he had received from one of the leading men in the labour world, grown white-haired in the service, a gracious compliment ("I was like my enthusiastic friend Barnes, here, when I was a lad," the white-haired man had said), Erb experienced a slight reaction to find that here was the old matter-of-fact world and--Monday morning! An independent set, because of the fact that for so many hours of the day they were their own masters, with a horse and van to take them about, and a vanboy for slave or despot, on Monday mornings carmen were specially curt of speech and unreliable of temper. In the stables was contentious dispute about horses, about the condition of the empty vans, about tardily arriving boys, about anything, in fact, that lent itself to disapproval. Erb's boy, William Henry, was prompt as ever, but Erb found annoyance in the circumstance that his friend Payne, instead of taking up conversation in regard to an important matter where it had been left the previous afternoon, now treated this as a subject of secondary importance, and as they drove up in the direction of town and the Borough, insisted, with the interruptions that came when traffic parted their vans, on giving to Erb details of a domestic quarrel, in which his wife, Payne said, had been wrong and he had been right; Payne seemed anxious, however, to obtain confirmation of this view from some impartial outsider. The boy on each van left his rope at the back to listen.

"Shall we have time to do that," asked Erb at St. George's Church, where there was a stop of traffic, "before we start out on our first rounds? I should like to see it under weigh."

"It isn't," said Payne from his van, still absorbed with his own affairs, "it isn't as though I was always nagging. I don't seepose I've lifted me 'and at her half-a-dozen times this year, and then only when she's aggravated me."

"It ought to have an effect if we can get every name signed to it."

"Question is, has a legally married wife got any right to go throwing a man's rel'tives in his face jest because they don't come to see her? I ain't responsible for my Uncle Richard, am I? If he's gone and got himself into trouble in his time it ain't me that's got to be punished, is it? Very well, then, what's the use of talkin'?"

William Henry, in Erb's van, made a note. Never have an Uncle Richard.

"It must be unanimous," remarked Erb, speaking in fragments, and endeavouring to entice Payne's mind to imperial subjects as the policeman's hand allowed them to go on, "or else it might as well not be done at all. It's a case of all of us sticking together like glue. If it don't have no effect, what I've been thinking of is a deputation to the General Manager."

"She's not a going to manage me," returned Payne, catching something of the last sentence. "If I'm treated with proper respect I'm a lamb, but if anyone attempts to lord it over me, I'm simply a--"

William Henry, ordered back to the tail of his van, made note number two. Trouble brewing, and, in the case of wholesale discharges, a fair chance of honest lads gaining promotion.

The van foreman waited at the entrance to the railway arch where the up parcels office, after many experiments in other places, had decided to settle; he looked on narrowly as the vans drove up the side street. The van foreman had been a carman in his day (to say nothing of a more lowly start in boyhood), and he openly flattered himself that he knew the whole bag of tricks: he also sometimes remarked acutely that anyone who had the best of him had only one other person to get over, and that other person did not live on this earth. The van foreman was not really so clever as he judged himself to be (but his case was neither unprecedented nor without imitators), and his maxim--which was that in dealing with men you had to keep hammering away at them--was one that in practice had at times defective results.

"Yes," said the van foreman gloomily, as though replying to a question, "of course, you two are not the first to arrive. Barnes and Payne--Payne and Barnes. There ain't a pin to choose between you. What's your excuse?"

"Wh-oh!" said Erb to his horse, assuming that it had shied. "Wo--ho! my beauty. Don't be frightened at him. He ain't pretty, but he's quite harmless."

"I want no sauce," snapped the van foreman. "Good manners cost nothing."

"You might as well replenish your stock, then," retorted Erb.

"Re-plenish!" echoed the other disgustedly. "Why don't you talk the Queen's English like what I do? What's all this I 'ear about a round robin to the guy'nor?"

"Fond of game, isn't he?"

"Look 'ere," said the van foreman seriously, "I'm not going to bemean meself by talking to you. I've spoken to some of the others, and I've told them there's the sack for every man jack of 'em that signs it. I give no such warning to you, mind: I simply turn me back on you, like this."

"Your back view's bad enough," called Erb as the other went off; "but your front view's something awful."

"I was a better lookin' chap than you," called the van foreman hotly, "once."

"Once ain't often," said Erb.

He backed his van into position, and was about to cry, "Chain on!" but William Henry had anticipated the order, and had, moreover, fetched from the booking-up desk the long white delivery sheet, with its entries of names and addresses.

William Henry also assisted in loading up the parcels with more than usual alacrity, that he might have a few minutes in which to saunter about with an air of unconcern and pick up news concerning possible vacancies. The carmen who had finished their work of loading, went up to the further end of the arch, waiting for the hour of twenty to nine, and snatching the opportunity for discussing a matter of public interest. Erb followed, watched keenly by the van foreman.

"Got the document, Erb?"

"'Ere it is," said Erb importantly, drawing a long envelope from the inside pocket of his uniform jacket. "All drawn up in due order, I think."

"What we've got to be careful about," said a cautious, elderly carman preparing to listen, "is not to pitch it too strong, and not to pitch it too weak."

"The same first-class idea occurred to me," remarked Erb.

"Read it out to 'em, Erb," suggested Payne.

Pride and a suggestion of Southwark Park was in the young man's tones, as, unfolding the sheet of foolscap paper, he proceeded to recite the terms of the memorial. The style was, perhaps, slightly too elaborate for the occasion, but this appeared to be no defect in the eyes and ears of the listening men.

"'And your petitioners respectfully submit, therefore, these facts to your notice, viz.,'--"

"What does 'viz.' mean?" asked the cautious, elderly carman.

"'Viz,'" explained Erb, "is quite a well-known phrase, always used in official communications. 'To your notice, viz., the long hours which we work, the paucity of pay, and the mediocre prospects of advancement. Whilst your petitioners are unwilling to resort to extreme measures, they trust it will be understood that there exists a general and a unanimous determination to improve or ameliorate'--"

"He'll never understand words like that," said the elderly carman despairingly. "Why, I can only guess at their meaning."

"'Or ameliorate the present environments under which they are forced to carry on their duties. Asking the favour of an early answer, We are, sir, your obedient servants--'"

"That," concluded Erb, "that is where we all sign."

"Your respectful and obedient servants, _I_ should say," suggested the elderly carman.

"Hark!" said Erb authoritatively. "The terms of this have all been very carefully considered, and once you begin to interfere with them, you'll mar the unity of the whole thing. Payne, got your pen?"

Payne seemed to feel that he was adjusting his quarrel with domestic events by dipping his penholder into an inkstand and signing his name fiercely. Erb followed, and the other men contributed to the irregular circle of names. The elderly carman hesitated, but one of his colleagues remarked that one might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, and the elderly carman appeared to derive great encouragement from this, signing his name carefully and legibly, and looking at it when done with something like affection.

"I sha'n't ask you to get away with your loads many more times," shouted the van foreman from the other end of the arch. "Yes, it's you I'm talkin' to. You're all champion mikers, every one of you. I wouldn't give three 'apence a dozen for you, not if I was allowed to pick and choose."

The men flushed.

"Chaps," said Erb quickly, "there's only one thing we might add. Shall we recommend that this old nuisance be done away with? I can easily work it in."

"I beg to second that," growled Payne.

"Thought you wasn't taking any suggestions?" remarked the elderly carman.

"This is more than a suggestion," said Erb masterfully. "Are we all agreed?" The men held up their hands, shoulder high. "Much obliged! Payne, after you with that pen."

Many of the van boys had snatched the opportunity to have a furtive game of banker with picture cards, but William Henry stood precisely at the tail of his mate's van, responding in no way to the raillery of his young comrades, who, in their efforts to move him from the path of good behaviour, exhausted a limited stock of adjectives, and a generous supply of nouns. To William Henry, as a safe lad, was entrusted the duty of taking the long envelope to the Chief's office, and his quick ears having gained something of the nature of the communication, he ran, and meeting the Chief at the door of the private office, gave it up with the message, "Answer wanted sharp, sir!" a gratuitous remark, ill-calculated to secure for it an amiable reception.

The labour member who had given to Erb a golden compliment on the previous evening had many proud titles; he was accustomed to say that the one he prized highest was that of "a manager of men," and, indeed, the labour member had lost the colour of his hair and added lines to his face by piloting many a strike, guiding warily many a lock-out, but he had been rewarded by the universal acknowledgment that he could induce the men to do as he wished them to do; having gained this position, any idea of revolt against his command appeared, on the face of it, preposterous. It pleased Erb, as he drove his soberly-behaved horse and his van through the City to commence deliveries in the Pimlico district, to think that he, too, at the very outset, had impressed the colleagues with a confident manner. It was fine to see the wavering minds pin themselves to his superior direction, and give to him the duty of leading. He rehearsed to himself, as he drove along the Embankment, the speech which he would make when they held a meeting consequent on a refusal of the application; one sentence that came to his mind made him glow with delight, and he felt sure it had occurred to no one before. "United we must succeed; divided we most certainly shall fail!" He talked himself into such a state of ecstasy (William Henry, the while, swinging out by the rope, and repelling the impertinent action of boys driving shop cycles, who desired to economise labour by holding on at the rear of the van), that when he drove his thoughtful horse round by the Houses of Parliament it seemed to him that if the House were sitting he had almost achieved the right to get down and go in there and vote. At his first delivery to a contumacious butler, ill-tempered from an impudent attempt on the part of his master to cut down expenses, recalled Erb to his actual position in life, and as he went on Grosvenor Road way he was again a carman at twenty-three shillings and sixpence a week. Later, at a coffee shop which proclaimed itself "A Good Pull-up for Carmen," and added proudly, "Others Compete, Few Equal, None Excel," he stopped for lunch, having by that time nearly finished his first round of deliveries.

He shouted an order of "Bag on!" to William Henry, and, stepping down, went inside. Other drivers from other companies were in the coffee-house, and Erb, taking a seat in one of the pews, listened with tolerant interest to their confused arguments. All the variously uniformed men had a grievance, and all were quite certain that something ought to be done. The least vague of all the preferred solutions came from a North Western man, who said that "We must be up and doing."

"The great thing is," went on the North Western man, encouraged by the absence of contradiction, "to keep on pegging away."

"Which way?" asked the carman at the end of the room.

"_That_," said the North Western man modestly, "_that_ it is not for me to decide. I leave that to wiser men than me. I candidly confess that I'm not one of your busybodies."

"Seems to me," remarked a Great Western man, cutting the thick bacon on his bread gloomily, "that every other department's getting a look in excepting the drivers. We're out of sight part of the day, and out of mind all the day. Take my own case. I've got children growing up, and I find," here the Great Western man rapped the handle end of his knife on the table, "I find they all want boots."

"What can I get for you?" said the matronly waitress, coming down the aisle.

"I didn't call you, my dear. I was only arguin'."

"Man-like!" said the waitress, going back to the kitchen.

"I find 'em in boots," went on the man, "but do I ever 'ave a chance of seeing the kids 'cept Sunday?" A murmur of anticipatory agreement with the coming answer went round. "My youngest is about a year old, and takes notice in a manner that's simply wonderful--my wife says so, everybody says so, but he forgets me from one Sunday to another, and screams like anything when he catches sight of me."

"P'raps you smile at him, old man?"

"And that's why I agree," concluded the Great Western man earnestly, "that some'ing ought to be done. Has anybody got 'alf a pipe of 'bacca to spare?"

"What we want," remarked the North Western man, "is a chap that'll persuade us to--"

"Yes, but--after you with the metch, old sort--but where is he?"

Erb closed the black shiny bag which his sister Louisa had packed and stood out in the gangway between the pews. He held his peaked cap in his hand, and fingered at the brass buttons of his waistcoat.

"I've took the liberty of listening," he said, speaking slowly, "to the remarks you chaps have been making, and if there's two minutes to spare, I should like to offer my views. I sha'n't take more'n two minutes."

"Fire away," said the others, leaning out of their pews.

"Let me first of all preface my observations by telling you what we have done only this morning at my place. We have simply--" Erb described the procedure; the men listened interestedly. "And now let me tell you, friends, what we propose to do when this round robin of ours gets the usual sort of answer. We shall fix on a certain morning--this is in confidence, mind. We shall resolve upon a certain, definite, and final course of action. Then it'll be war, and we shall find out who's master."

"And s'posing they are?"

"They would stand no chance," cried Erb, "if we could but preserve a united front. But you're too nervous, all of you, to do that. You've been tied up, hand and foot, too long to know how to move. It will be for us at our place to show you a lead, and I can only 'ope for your sakes that when we prove successful you will 'ave the common-sense, the energy, and the intelligence to go and do likewise. Meanwhile, so long!"

He punched at the inside of his peaked cap and strode out of the doorway, an exit that would have been dignified had not the stout waitress hurried down after him with a demand for fourpence-halfpenny. Even in these circumstances, he had the gratification of hearing inquiries, "Who is he, who is he?" And one commendatory remark from the North Western man, "Got his 'ead screwed on the right way."

"Now, why ain't you lookin' after the van, William Henry?" asked Erb appealingly.

"I'm very sorry, mate," said the boy, "but I never can resist the temptation of listening to you."

Erb accepted the explanation. He climbed up to his seat, and, awakening the well-fed horse, induced him to finish the deliveries. Eventually he drove back to the station. There he heard the latest news. The Chief had sent for the Van Foreman, a cabinet council had been held, the Chief had gone now to consult the General Manager. So far, good; the dovecotes had been fluttered. He met five or six of the carmen as he waited for his second deliveries, and criticised the writing of the clerk at the booking-up desk; they were nervous now that the arrow had been shot, and they impressed upon Erb the fact that it was he who really pulled the bow. He accepted this implication of responsibility, his attitude slightly reassured the nervous. A young horse was brought up from the stables to take the place of the solemn animal, and its eccentric and sportive behaviour served to occupy Erb's thoughts during the afternoon. He had occasion to deliver a hamper of vegetables at a house in Eaton Square, and to collect a basket of laundry, and as he waited he saw his sister Alice on the steps of her house whistling for a hansom; he would have offered assistance, only that he remembered that in the eyes of that house he was an Inspector; when a cab answered the appeal a very tall, neatly-dressed young woman came down the steps, preceded by Alice, who ran to guard the muddy wheel with a basket protector. An attractive face the tall young woman had. Erb would have thought more of it, but for the fact that at this period of his career he had determined to wave from his purview all members of the fair sex, excepting only his sisters; the work before him would not permit of the interference that women sometimes gave. He resented the fact that the lame young woman of Southwark Park would not go from his memory. Erb reproved him sharply, and ordered him to mind his own business.

"Carman Barnes. To see me here, on to-day, certain."

This was the endorsement in red ink on the sheet of blue foolscap which had set out the grievances of the carmen, and Erb flushed with pride to find that he, and he alone, had been selected to argue the grievances of his colleagues with the Chief of the department. The men appeared not to grudge him the honour, and the van foreman held himself austerely in a corner, declining to open his mouth, as though fearful of disclosing an important state secret. Erb thought it diplomatic to ask the others whether they had any suggestions to offer for the coming debate (this without any intention of accepting advice); they all declared moodily that it was he who had led them into trouble, and his, therefore, should be the task of getting them out. Payne wished him good luck, but appeared to have no great confidence in his own powers of prophecy. Erb washed in a zinc pail, parted his obstinate hair carefully with the doubtful assistance given by a cheap pocket mirror which William Henry always carried, and, watched by the carmen and chaffed by the casually interested porters and clerks, he went to endure that experience of an interview with the Chief, known as "going on the carpet." The Chief was engaged for the moment; would Carman Barnes please wait for a few moments? It happened that Erb himself was boiling for the consultation, and this enforced delay of a few moments, which grew into ten minutes, disconcerted him; when at last a shorthand clerk came out, and he was admitted into the presence, some of his warm confidence had cooled. The Chief, a big, polite, good-tempered man, sat at the table signing letters.

"Shan't keep you half a second," he remarked, looking up.

"Very good, sir."

"Beautiful weather," said the Chief absently, as he read, "for the time of the year."

"We can't complain, sir," said Erb meaningly, "of the weather." The clock up high on the wall of the office ticked on, and Erb endeavoured to marshal his arguments in his mind afresh.

"That little job is finished," said the Chief, dabbing the blotting paper on his last signature. "I wonder how many times I sign my name in the course of a day; if only I had as many sovereigns. Let me see, what was it we wanted to talk to each other about?" Erb produced the memorial, and stood cap in hand as the Chief read it with an air that suggested no previous knowledge of the communication. "Oh, yes," said the Chief, "of course. I remember now. Something about the hours of duty."

"And wages," said Erb, "et cetera."

"I get so much to think of," went on the Chief, autobiographically, "that unless I put it all down on a memo I forget about it. Now when I was your age. What are you, Barnes?"

"Twenty-one next birthday, sir."

"Ah," sighed the Chief, "a fine thing to be one and twenty, you've got all the world before you. You ought to be as happy as a lord at your age."

"The 'appiness that a lord would extract from twenty-three and six a week would go in a waistcoat pocket."

"There's something in that," admitted the other, cheerfully. "But, bless my soul, there are plenty worse off. A man can grub along very well on it so long as he is not ambitious."

"And why shouldn't a man be ambitious?" demanded Erb. "Some people raise themselves up from small beginnings"--the Chief took up his paper cutter--"and all honour to them for it." The Chief laid down the paper cutter. "It must be a great satisfaction to look back when they are getting their three or four 'undred a year and think of the time when they were getting only a quid a week. It must make 'em proud of themselves, and their wife and their women folk must be proud of 'em too."

"Married, Barnes?"

"No, sir. Live with my sister."

"Engaged perhaps?"

"Not on twenty-three and six."

Difficult to use the well-rehearsed arguments and the violent phrases to a courteous man, who showed so much personal interest. If he would but raise his voice or show defiant want of sympathy.

"But some of us _are_ married, sir," Erb went on, "and some of us have children, and I tell you straight, when the rent is paid, and when the children's clothes are bought and just the necessaries of life are purchased, there's precious little left over. You can't realise perhaps, sir, what it means to look at every penny, and look at it hard, before it's paid away."

"Pick up a bit, don't you, you carmen?"

"An occasional twopence," cried Erb, "and think what a degrading thing it is for some of us to accept voluntary contributions from those placed in a more fortunate position in life?"

"Never knew a railway man object to it before," mused the Chief.

"You're thinking of the old school, sir. Men are beginning to recognise that capital can't do without them, and capital must therefore fork out accordingly. This memorial which you hold at the present time in your 'and, sir, contains a moderate appeal. If that moderate appeal is refused, I won't be answerable for the consequences."

"And yet, I take it, you know more about the consequences than anyone else?"

"Be that as it may, sir," said Erb, flattered, "we needn't go into hypo--hypo--"

"Hypothetical?"

"Thank you, sir. We needn't go into that part of the question at present. But it's only fair to warn you that when I go back to the men and tell them that their very reasonable applications have been one and all refused, and refused, if I may say so, with ignominy, then there'll be such an outbreak. Mind you, sir, I'm not blaming you; I only talk to you in this way, because 'ere's me representing labour on this side of the table, and there's you on the other side of the table representing capital."

"Labour," remarked the Chief, trying to make a tent of three pen holders, "is to be congratulated."

"Therefore, not wishing to take up your time any longer, I should like to conclude by remarking in the language of one of our poets of old, who remarks--"

"No, no," protested the Chief gently, "don't let us drag in the poets. They were all very well in their way, but really you know, not railway men. Not one of them. What I want you to tell the others is that if I had the power of deciding on this matter, likely enough I should give them everything they ask. But above me, Barnes, above me is the Superintendent, above the Superintendent is the General Manager, above the General Manager are the Directors, and above the Directors are the Shareholders."

"And all of you a stamping down on poor us."

"To a certain extent," admitted the Chief, in his friendly way, "but only to a certain extent. What they want, what I want, is that everything should go on smoothly."

"To come to the point," suggested Erb. "I take it that you answer this application, sir, in the negative. I take it that I'm to go back to the men and say to them, 'All my efforts on your behalf have been fruitless.'"

"_Your_ efforts?"

"My efforts," said Erb proudly.

"You are mainly responsible then?"

"I don't deny it."

"I see," said the Chief, slowly pulling the feathers from a quill pen. "My information was to that effect, but it is well to have it confirmed by you. Now look here, Barnes." He took up the sheet of blue foolscap, with a change of manner. "The men ask for the removal of the van foreman. That suggestion will not be acted upon. If we were all to be allowed to choose our own masters we should be playing a nice topsy-turvy game. You understand?"

"I've taken a note of it," remarked Erb darkly. He wrote something with a short pencil on the back of an envelope. "Negative answer also, I s'pose, to the question of hours?"

"Not so fast. In regard to the question of hours some concession will be made. They have increased of late without my knowledge. The men will take it in turns, in batches of three or four, to go off duty at six o'clock one week in the month. This will necessitate a couple of extra carmen."

"Good!" approved Erb, making a fresh note. "We now approach the question of wages."

"The men who have been in the service for five years will receive an additional two shillings a week."

"That's a fair offer."

"The men who have been with us for more than a year will, with one exception, receive an increase of one and six."

Erb wrote the figures on the back of the envelope. Already he was composing in his mind the elaborate sentences by which he would make the satisfactory announcement to his colleagues. A telephone bell in the corner of the office stung the ear; the Chief rose, and bidding Erb wait outside for a few minutes, went to answer it. Erb closed the door after him in order to avoid any suspicion of overhearing, and, big with the important news, could not resist the temptation to hurry through into the arch where the men in a group were waiting; the van foreman sat on a high stool in the corner, in an attitude that suggested contrition.

"Well, chaps," said Payne, when Erb, in one long, ornate sentence had given the information, "this is a little bit of all right. I think I'm speaking the general opinion when I say we're very much indebted to Erb for all the trouble he's took."

"Hear, hear!" said the men cheerfully.

"I could see from the first," remarked the eldest carman, "that he meant to pull it off for us."

"The occasion being special," said Payne, bunching his short, red beard in one hand, "I think we might all of us treat ourselves to a tonic."

"Not me," said Erb. "I've got to get back just to say a few words to the gov'nor. But don't let me stop you chaps from 'aving one."

"You won't!" remarked Payne with candour.

The conversation at the telephone was still going on when Erb returned to the Chief's office; some time having been occupied, apparently, with the usual preliminaries of one party begging the other to speak up, and the other urging on the first the advisability of seeking some remedy for increasing deafness. The Chief rang off presently, and came to the door and opened it.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, Barnes."

"Was there anything else you wanted to say, sir?"

"Only this. I told you there was one exception in this scheme of increases."

"Everitt is a bit too fond of the glass, sir, but p'raps a word of warning from you--"

"Everitt drinks, but Everitt does his work quietly, and he doesn't disturb the other men. The one exception, Barnes, is yourself."

"Me?" exclaimed Erb.

"It's like this," said the Chief, going on with the work of plucking a quill pen. "You're a restless organiser, and no doubt somewhere in the world there is a place for you. But not here, Barnes, not here! Of course, we don't want to sack you, but if you don't mind looking out for another berth--No hurry, you know, next week will do--why--"

The Chief threw down the stark quill pen; intimation that the conference was at an end.

"I'm not the first martyr that's suffered in the cause of right and justice," said Erb, his face white, "and I'm probably not the last. I take this as a distinct encouragement, sir, to go on in the path that Fate has mapped out for me, ever striving, I trust, not so much to improve my own personal position, as to better--"

"Shut the door after you," said the Chief, "and close it quietly, there's a good chap."

Chapter III

TURMOIL of the mind that followed in the next few days was increased by the worry of a Society engagement. To the servants' party in Eaton Square, Erb, having been formally invited, sent answer that he was busy with meetings of one sort and another, and begged, therefore, to be excused: this to his sister Louisa's great content. Arrived another post card from Alice, saying that if this meant that he would not come unless Louisa were invited, then she supposed there was nothing to do but to ask them both; she would send a few things down by Carter Paterson the day before the party, that Louisa might adorn herself with something like distinction, and do as little harm as possible to the repute of Alice. To this, after an enthusiastic discussion, that was not a discussion, in that Louisa did all the talking, a reply was sent, stating that Louisa and himself would arrive by a series of 'buses on the night mentioned, and that Louisa begged her sister would not deprive herself of articles of attire, "me having," said Louisa's note, "ample." The incident had its fortunate side, insomuch that it absorbed the whole mind of the delighted young sister, and prevented her from giving much attention to the matter of Erb's forced resignation. Lady experts called every evening at the model dwellings to give advice in regard to costume, and, in the workshop, other white-faced girls pushed aside the relation of their love affairs in order to give their minds to this subject: Louisa's current young man received stern orders not so much as dare show his face in Page's Walk for a good fortnight. It was only on the evening of the party, when Louisa, gorgeously apparelled, sat in the living-room, ready a full hour before the time for starting, and Erb in his bedroom about to start on the work of changing from a parcels carman to a private gentleman, that the short girl found leisure and opportunity to review Erb's affairs.

"And all the rest," said Louisa severely in conclusion, "all the rest of these 'umbugs reaping the fruits of your labours, and you thrown out neck and crop. I can't think how you come to be such a idiot. You don't see me doing such silly things. What do you think your poor mother would say if she were 'ere?"

"You haven't seen the evening paper, I s'pose?" asked the voice of Erb, muffled by soap-suds.

"Evening paper," echoed the short sister, fractiously. "Is this a time for bothering about evening papers? The question is what are you going to do next, Erb? Been round to any of the other stations?" A grunt from the bedroom intimated a negative answer. "You'll come to rack and ruin, Erb, that's what you'll come to if I don't look after you."

"Catch hold." A bare arm held out from the bedroom doorway a pink evening paper.

"What d'you want me to read now? I don't want to go botherin' my 'ead about murders when I'm full of this party."

"Where my thumb is," said Erb's voice. A damp mark guided her attention, and she read it, her lips moving silently as she went through the paragraph, her head giving its uncontrollable shake.

"We understand that a Society of Railway Carmen has been formed, and that the first meeting will be held at the Druid's Arms, Southwark, on Saturday evening, at half-past nine o'clock, a late hour fixed in order to secure the attendance of the men. There are two candidates for the position of secretary--Messrs. Herbert Barnes and James Spanswick. The former is losing his situation for taking part in a labour movement, and his case has excited a great deal of interest."

"I say," cried Louisa, in an awed voice, "that's never meant for you, Erb?"

"It ain't meant for anyone else," called Erb. "Seen anything of my stud?"

"Where did you put it last? But, just fancy, in print too. And underneath is something about Royalty." Louisa clicked her tongue amazedly. "You never said anything about it, either."

"No use talking too much. Why, here's the collar stud in the shirt all the time. No use talking too much beforehand. Besides, it isn't what you may call definitely settled yet. Spanswick's got very strong support, and he hates me as much as he likes beer. I said something rather caustic on one occasion about his grammar."

"I shall snip this out," said Louisa, as Erb appeared struggling into his coat, "and I shall show it privately to everybody I come across in Eaton Square to-night."

"I don't know that that's worth while," he said doubtfully.

"It'll let 'em see," said Louisa, with decision, "that they ain't everybody. When you've done trimming your cuffs with the scissors--"

No further word of disparagement came from the short girl as she trotted along proudly by the side of her brother to the junction where New Kent Road starts for Walworth and town. Indeed, outside the tram she expressed some surprise at the fact that so many people were not acquainted with her brother; she consoled herself by the assurance that once Erb obtained a start the whole world would join her in an attitude of respect; she also enjoyed, in anticipation, the reflected glory that would be hers in the workshop the following morning. Being as outspoken in praise as in blame, it resulted, as they walked over Westminster Bridge and took an omnibus, that not only Louisa, but Erb himself, had attained a glowing state of content, and when they arrived eventually at the house in Eaton Square (lighted recklessly below and sparsely illuminated above) they felt that the world might possibly contain their equals, but they were certainly not prepared to look on anybody as a superior.

"Jackson," said the buttoned boy who opened the door as they descended the area, "this looks like your lot."

"They call her Jackson," whispered Louisa to her brother, interrupting his protest. "Parlour-maid here is always called Jackson."

Alice came forward. A spray of wild flowers meandered from the waist of her pale blue dress to her neck; she took her brother's hand up high in the air before shaking it. A few tightly-collared young men stood about the entrance to the cleared kitchen, encouraging white gloves to cover their hands; they also had bunches of flowers in buttonholes, and one of them wore an open dress waistcoat. A Japanese screen masked the big range; nails in the walls had been relieved of their duties, a white cloth'd table with refreshments stood at the end near a pianoforte.

"You're early," said Alice, kissing her sister casually. Louisa took the brown paper parcel from Erb's arm.

"Thought you'd like the evening to start well," she said. "Any gentlemen coming?"

"Haven't you got eyes?" asked Alice, leading the way upstairs and waving a hand in the direction of the shy youths.

"Gentlemen, _I_ said," remarked Louisa.

"I shall begin to wish I hadn't asked you," said Alice pettishly, "if you're going on like that all the evening. I believe you only do it to annoy me."

"What else could I do it for?" asked the short sister.

"Erb," ordered the tall sister from the stairs, "you leave your hat and coat in that room. Thank goodness I've got a brother who knows how to behave. Good mind now not to titivate your hair for you."

"You mustn't mind me," said Louisa, relenting at this threat. "It's only me manner."

They were received on returning downstairs by the housekeeper, a large important lady in black silk and with so many chains that she might have been a contented inmate of some amazingly gorgeous and generous prison; the housekeeper having been informed that Erb was an official on a South of England railway begged him to explain why, in travelling through Ireland during the winter, it was so difficult to obtain foot-warmers, and seemed not altogether satisfied with the reply that it was probably because the Irish railways did not keep them in sufficient quantities. The cook, also stout but short, engaged Erb for the first two dances, assuring him (this proved indeed to be a fact) that she was, in spite of appearances, very light on her toes, and quoting a compliment that had been paid to her by a perfect stranger, and therefore unbiased, at Holborn Town Hall in the early eighties.

"And this, Erb, is Jessie," said Alice, introducing a large-eyed young woman in pale green. "Jessie is my _very_ great friend." She added, "Just at present."

"I think you speak, Mr. Barnes?" said the large-eyed young woman earnestly.

"I open my mouth now and again," admitted Erb, "just for the sake of exercising my face."

"Ah!" she sighed, looking at him in a rapt, absorbed way. "Somehow you put it all in a nutshell. I should simply love to be able to say the true, the right, the inevitable thing. I could almost--perhaps, I ought not to say it--but I could almost worship a clever man."

Erb, reddening, said that there were precious few of them about.

"Talk to me, please!" she said appealingly. "Button this glove of mine, and then tell me all about yourself. I shall be frightfully interested."

"You don't want to hear about me," said Erb, essaying the task set him.

"If you only knew!" she said.

This was really very gratifying. Erb had wondered whether the evening would interfere for a time with consideration of his great crisis: he soon found that the evening was to put that subject entirely out of his thoughts. This was in itself a relief, for, despite confidence in himself, he felt nervous about the result of the forthcoming meeting; to-night he could dismiss worry and give his mind a holiday. He found that Jessie's surname was Luker, and the house called her Masters; the tall young woman declared that she positively hated the name of Luker, and confessed to a special admiration for the name of Barnes, strongly contesting Erb's suggestion that Barnes was a second-class sort of name, and worthy of but little esteem. Near the cottage pianoforte that had been fixed in the corner of the kitchen, a sombre young person in black sat on a chair that had to be improved and made suitable by an enormous dictionary, fetched by the pageboy from upstairs, and, receiving orders to play just what she liked for the first, this lady struck violently into the prelude of a waltz, choosing a square in the pattern of the wall-paper before her at which she could yawn. Couples, standing up, waited impatiently for the real waltz to commence; young women moving a smartly-slippered foot; Louisa formulating her first protest against convention by saying aloud to her partner, a precise footman, "Oh, let me and you make a start!" The others said, "S-s-s-h!" and watched the butler. The butler gave a pull at his yellow waistcoat and advanced solemnly to the housekeeper.

"Mrs. Margetson," he said, "I'm not so handy on me feet as I used to be, but I trust I may have the honour of opening the dance with you?"

"Mr. Rackham," replied the housekeeper with a slight bow, "thank you very much for asking, but, as you know, the leastest excitement makes my head a torture. Would you mind," with a wave of the fan, "asking Mamselle to take my place?"

"I shall have much plaisure," said the French lady's maid, promptly. "_A deux temps_ or _a trois temps_, Meestair R-rackham?"

"Leave it to you, Mamselle," replied the butler.

The two went half way round the kitchen before the other couples ventured to move: a nod from the housekeeper then gave permission. Erb found himself rather unfortunate at first, and this was his own fault, for, with his usual manner of taking charge, he endeavoured to pilot the agreeable Miss Luker and ran her into rocks and whirlpools and on to the quicksands of ladies' trains; it was only after the fourth disaster, when the fiance of the upper-housemaid (who was one of the tightly-collared men and wore his short hair brushed forward in the manner of grooms) said to him audibly, "Not accustomed to drive, apparently!" that he permitted Miss Luker to take up the duty of guidance, and thereafter they went in and out the swinging dancers with no accident. Miss Luker was quite a marvellous young woman, for she could dance and talk calmly at the same time, a trick so impossible to Erb that, when he attempted it, he found he could only stammer acquiescence to some contestable theory advanced by his partner, or ejaculate some words in acceptance of an undeserved compliment.

"It seems like fate," sighed Miss Luker, as she saved Erb from sweeping the pianiste from her dictionary and chair, "but do you know you have exactly my step? It seems like fate," repeated Miss Luker, as the music stopped and couples began to walk around the room, "and it _is_ fate."

"I don't quite follow you," said Erb, trying to regain his breath and dodging the long train of Mamselle. "To my mind, most things depend on us, and if we want anything to happen we can generally make it happen. Otherwise, where would ambition, and energy, and what not come in?"

"You mustn't talk above my head," said Miss Luker, winningly. "You forget how stupid we poor women are." An accidental lull came in the clatter of conversation.

"You're an exception," declared Erb.

His sister looked over their shoulders at him with surprise, and the footman giggled. The others, with an elaborate show of tact, began to speak hurriedly on the first subject that occurred to them, and the lady at the pianoforte, checked half way through a yawn, was ordered by the housekeeper to play a set of Lancers. Erb, in his life, had many trying moments, but none seemed so acute as this, when he had been caught paying a compliment to a lady. It was the first time he had ever done it, and when his self-control returned, and, taking sides, he and cook went through the devious ways of the set dance, he warned himself to use more care in future. Nevertheless, some excuse could be urged: whenever he glanced at Miss Luker, now with the gloomy young man for partner, he found that her large eyes were looking at him, and she turned away quickly with great show of confusion. When the Lancers had, by gracious permission of the housekeeper, repeated its last figure, cook, beckoned aside by the footman, introduced her partner with due formality. Mr. Danks--the footman bowed.

"We--er--know each other by reputation, Mr. Barnes."

"Very kind of you to say so," said Erb.

"When you feel inclined for a cigarette," said the footman, "give me the tip. What I mean to say is--tip me the wink! They won't let us smoke here, but we can go into the pantry, or we can take a whiff round the square if you prefer it." Here the footman giggled, "I often wonder whether 'round the square' is a correct expression. Find any trouble, may I ask, in choosin' your language?"

"It comes to me pretty free," said Erb, "if I'm at all 'eated."

"Heated," corrected Mr. Danks, "heated! Before I went to my uncle's in Southampton Street, Camberwell, to take lessons, I used to drop 'em like--like anything."

"Never trouble about trifles meself."

"For public men like me and you," said Mr. Danks. He stopped a giggle, perceiving that what he had thought to be a humorous remark did not, judging from Erb's expression, really bear that character. "Like me and you," he went on, "the letter aitch is one of the toughest difficulties that we have to encounter. In my profession, at one time, it was looked on, to use your words, as a trifle. Those times, Mr. Barnes, are gone and done with. The ability to aspirate the letter aitch in the right place--in the _right_ place, mind you--has done more to break down the barriers that separated class from class than any other mortal thing in this blessed world."

"I wonder, now," said Erb, with some interest, "whether you're talking rot, or whether there's something in what you say?"

"If you think anything more of it," said Mr. Danks, feeling in his waistcoat pocket, "take my uncle's card, and go on and chat it over with him."

"'Professor of Elocution. Declamation Taught!'" read Erb.

"His daughter knows you; heard you speak in Southwark Park."

"Not a lame girl?"

"If I hadn't gone to him," said Mr. Danks nodding affirmatively, "I should never have known how to recite."

"Nice drawback that would have been. So her name's Danks?"

"Rosalind Danks."

"Rosalind," repeated Erb thoughtfully.

"As it is," said the other with a giggle of satisfaction, "my 'King Robert of Sicily' gets me more invites out than I know what to do with. I suppose your sister has told you all about it."

"Talks of nothing else," declared Erb inventively.

To his surprise, Mr. Danks shook him very warmly by the hand, giggling the while with satisfaction, and, with the remark that he must now do the amiable to the remaining member of the family, left Erb and went across to Louisa--Louisa, flushed and almost attractive looking from the excitement of dancing. Erb calculated the distance between himself and the fair Miss Luker, and, with an attempt to imitate the easy manner of Mr. Danks, lounged across in her direction, but before he reached her three of the young men had formed up defensively, and Erb had to lean clumsily against the wall near to his short sister and her new companion. Mr. Danks had placed a footstool for Louisa.

"You are rather short," explained the excellently mannered footman.

"I stopped growin' a purpose," said Louisa, kicking the footstool aside.

"You don't resemble your sister at all."

"Mustn't let her hear you say that," remarked Louisa, "else she'll be mad."

"It's been a very dull season in town," said Mr. Danks regretfully.

"Have you been away, then?"

"I suppose you get a good many engagements, Miss Barnes? What I mean to say is, don't you find it a great tax? The demands of society seem to increase year by year."

"It's some'ing awful," agreed Louisa. "I shall be out again--let me see--"

"To-morrow night?"

"In about six weeks' time, to a cantata at Maze Pond Chapel. Scarcely gives you time to breathe, does it?"

Alice perceived that her brother was growing moody in his solitude, and brought up to him the French lady's maid, who, discovering that he had once spent a day at Boulogne--conveyed to and fro by a free pass--talked to him vivaciously on the superiority of her native country over all others. The young woman at the pianoforte, aroused from a brief nap, was ordered to play a schottische.

At this point the evening suffered a check. It was Cook's fault. Cook, fearing that the hours were not moving with enough rapidity, suggested games; suggested also one called the Stool of Repentance. Necessary for one person to leave the room, and Mr. Danks being selected for this honour, went out, and the others thereupon selected libellous statements, of which Erb took charge.

"Come in, King Robert of Sicily," called Erb. Mr. Danks entered, and was ordered by Cook (hugging herself with enjoyment) to take a chair in the centre of the kitchen. "Someone says you're conceited."

"That's you," said Mr. Danks pointing to Alice.

"Wrong!" remarked Erb. "Someone says all the gels laugh at you."

"That's you," decided Mr. Danks, pointing at Cook. Cook now convulsed with amusement.

"Wrong again! Someone says you can't recite for nuts."

"I say," urged Mr. Danks, wriggling on the chair, "I'm as fond of a joke as anyone, but really-- That sounds like you, miss." Louisa shook her head negatively.

"You're not lucky, old man. Someone says you'll never get married in all your life for the simple reason that no one wants you."

"That's you this time, at any rate," cried Mr. Danks, with melancholy triumph. And, as Louisa it was, the short young woman had to go out.

"Come in!" cried Erb, when the accusations had been decided upon. "Some of 'em have been making it warm for you, Louiser."

"I'll make it hot for them, Erb."

"Someone says you'd be a fine looking gel if you were twice as broad and three times as long."

"Cook!" exclaimed Louisa.

Cook, slightly disappointed at this swift identification, made her way out with a large sigh of regret at enforced exercise. It was determined now to show more ingenuity, and Cook had to knock two or three times ere permission could be given for her return.

"Someone says," remarked Erb, "that you're the finest woman in Eaton Square, bar none."

Cook laughed coquettishly. "That sounds like you, Mr. Barnes."

"No fear," said Erb. "Someone says that you'll get engaged some day--"

"What nonsense!" interrupted Cook delightedly.

"If you only wear a thick veil over your face."

"Look here!" said Cook definitely. "That's enough of it. If I find out who said that I shall make no bones about it, but I shall go straight upstairs and complain to Lady Frances, so there now."

"Someone says," Erb went on, "that you've got such an uncommon size mouth that it would take three men and a boy to kiss you."

"I don't want to lose me temper," said Cook heatedly, and speaking with no stops, "and I'm not going to but once I know who dared say that and I'll go to the County Court first thing to-morrow morning and take out a summons against them people shan't go saying just what they like about me behind me back without having to prove every single-- No, no, I'm not getting cross nothing of the kind but once I know who so much as dared-- It's a silly stupid game and I can't think why it was ever suggested."

They were going back to dancing after this unsuccessful essay, when a quiet tap came at the door of the kitchen; and the couples, standing up to begin, suddenly released each other, the French lady's maid crying humorously, "Ciel! c'est mon mari!" Conversation ceased, and Cook bustled forward and opened the door.

"May I come in, Cook, I wonder?"

"Why," cried Cook; hysterical with delight, "as though you need ask, my dear, I mean, m'lady!"

It seemed to Erb that the West End possessed some exceptional forcing properties that made all of its young women grow tall. He stood upright, as though on parade, unconsciously following the lead given by the tightly collared men and by Mr. Danks. As the very tall young woman went across the silent room to the housekeeper his gaze followed her; he would have given half his savings to have been permitted to assume a light, unconcerned, and, if possible, a defiant manner.

"Do you know," she said brightly, "that I have not been down here since I was ten years old?"

"That's twelve years ago, Lady Frances," said the housekeeper. The housekeeper adjusted a bow at the white shoulders of the new arrival with an air of privilege.

"You sometimes used to let me bake things, didn't you, Cook?"

"I had to take care you didn't eat 'em," said Cook, admiring her from the opposite side of the room. The strain on severe countenances around the kitchen relaxed slightly. "The others," added Cook proudly, "don't remember. It was before their time, Lady Frances."

"And now that I am here," said Lady Frances, "it seems that I am to spoil your party." The servants and their visitors murmured, "Oh, no!" in an unconvincing way.

"What I thought was," she went on brightly, "that I might play to you."

"We have taken the liberty," said the housekeeper, "of hiring a musical person."

"But you will be glad of a rest," said Lady Frances, touching the pianiste on the hand and stopping her in a yawn. "When I was at school at Cheltenham I used to be rather good at dance music." She turned suddenly and looked down at Louisa. "Perhaps you play?"

"Me?" echoed Louisa confusedly. Louisa's sister Alice lifted her eyes in silent appeal to the fates. "I draw the line at a mouth organ." Her sister frowned at the ceiling. "And even that I'm out of practice with." Louisa found her handkerchief in a back pocket, and with some idea of hiding her confusion, rubbed her little nose vigorously.

"I think you have dropped this," said Lady Frances, stooping.

"Oh, that's only a bit out of this evening's newspaper. About my brother," added the girl.

"Really! May I read it, I wonder."

"Spell the words you can't pronounce," said Louisa. The room waited. Erb shifted his feet and endeavoured to look unconcerned.

"Are you-- Are you Miss Spanswick, then?" pleasantly and encouragingly.

"Am I Miss Spanswick?" echoed Louisa with despair in her voice. "Give it 'old! _This_ is my brother's name--Herbert Barnes--and, consequently, my name is Barnes. Not Spanswick."

"I see! tell me what can I play?"

"Play something you know," advised Louisa.

"Rackham! please suggest something."

"If it wasn't troubling your ladyship," said Mr. Rackham, taking off the dictionary, "and putting you to a great amount of ill-convenience, I should venture to suggest--hem!--a set of quadrilles."

Something in the playing, once the couples had persuaded themselves to make up sets and to dance to such an august musician, that had escaped the art of the hired pianiste. An emphasis at the right place; a marvellous ability for bringing the music of each figure to an end just as the dancing ceased, so that there was no longer necessity for clapping of hands to intimate that further melody was useless, or to go on dancing with no music at all. For the next, Lady Frances played a well-marked air for a new dance that had possessed town, and in this Miss Luker gave up her partner and undertook to teach Erb, who was not fully informed on the subject. It occurred to Erb, as he tried to lift his foot at the appointed moment, and prepared immediately afterwards to swing the agreeable upper housemaid round by the waist, that although his partner had modelled her style on that of the young woman seated at the pianoforte, there existed between them a long interval. Both had the same interested way of speaking, the same attention in listening, but, with Miss Luker, there seemed to be nothing at the back of the eyes. Erb, finding himself possessed with a hope that Lady Frances might presently speak to him, tried to compensate for this weakness by telling Miss Luker, when they were lifting one foot and swinging round at the far end of the kitchen, that the title meant nothing to him, and that, for his part, he preferred to mix with everybody on a common platform, to which Miss Luker replied, "Ah! that's because you're a railway man." Presently, in one of those sudden blanks of general talk that surprise the unwary, his raised voice was heard to say,--

"--Consequence is that the few revel in luxury, while the many--" He hesitated, and went on floundering through the silence. "Whilst the many 'ave not the wherewithal to buy their daily bread."

The awkward silence continued, broken only by the music from the pianoforte and the swishing of skirts.

"Erb," said his sister Alice, frowning over Mr. Danks's shoulder, "remember where you are."

"Exercise tack, my dear sir," recommended the butler. "Exercise tack."

"Even visitors," remarked the housekeeper severely, so that the young woman at the pianoforte should hear, "even visitors ought to draw the line somewhere. We can't help our opinions, but we can all stop ourselves from expressing them."

The music stopped, and the household looked rather nervously towards the chair, with an endeavour to ascertain whether the occupant had overheard the discordant remarks. To their relief, she leaned engagingly back, and beckoned to Louisa. Louisa, her head twitching with pride and agitation, went across the floor, and stood swinging her programme round and round.

"You _can_ play!" admitted Louisa. "Where did you pick it up?"

"I want you to bring your brother over to me," said Lady Frances.

Quite useless for the kitchen to pretend that it was giving its entire mind to the subject of refreshments. The situation demanded their eyes and ears; they ate oblong pieces of cake in a detached way, rather as though they were feeding someone else; the housekeeper looked at Alice, and shook her head desolately.

"I have been reading about you," said Lady Frances in her alert, interested way.

"Licker to me how these things get into the papers," he mumbled.

"I should be tremendously interested in life," said the girl, "if I occupied your position. There's something sporting about it." She looked at him intently, and he rubbed his nose under a vague impression that it bore some defect. "I wish you the best of good luck."

"Then I shall have it," said Erb. Alice looked round the room triumphantly, as who should say, _Now_ we are scoring. "Not acquainted much with the working-classes, p'raps, me lady?"

"To my regret, no!"

"They're made up of all sorts," went on Erb, wishing that he dared to look at her white shoulders as she looked at his face, "and for the most part they are very easily led. It's only now and again that you find one step out of the common ruck." He hesitated, seeing no way out of the sentence except by a self-congratulatory exit.

"If I should ever want to see through Bermondsey," she said, clasping her knee, her head up attractively, "will you be my guide?"

"It would be a proud moment," said Erb. He added, hastily, "For me, I mean."

"Cook, shall I play one more, and then go back upstairs and leave off bothering you?"

"The idea," said Cook reproachfully; "the idea, m'lady, of calling it botherin' us."

The others murmured polite sympathy with Cook's view, but when Lady Frances had played the four figures in a manner that seemed to Erb quite without flaw, she said good-night, giving a special word to Louisa that made the short girl redden with delight; coming back to the doorway after Cook had seen her out to say to Erb:

"Won't forget your promise, will you?"

The dance finished at half-past eleven, and the yawning pianiste went off to another engagement in Eccleston Street that began at midnight and was to last until the hour of four. The servants came up the steps of the area to see their visitors go, Alice now so proud of her brother that she declined to acknowledge the compliments of Mr. Danks, ignoring that gentleman's fervent assurance that she had been, as he expressed it, the belle of the evening.

"Good-bye, Mr. Barnes," said Miss Luker fervently. She walked on a few steps with him. "This evening will always, always remain in my mind as a precious memory."

"_I_ shan't forget it in a hurry."

"Oh, thank you for those words," whispered Miss Luker.

"Don't mention it."

"But promise. You won't think harshly of me, will you?"

"As a matter of fact, I don't suppose I shall 'ave time to think of you at all, 'arshly or otherwise. To-morrow night there's an important meeting on, and--"

"But if you should want to write to me," went on Miss Luker, undeterred and looking back at the gossiping bunch of visitors near the area entrance, "let me know and I'll send you some addressed envelopes. We live in a censorious world, Mr. Barnes, and-- Here comes your young sister. Think of me at four o'clock every afternoon, and I'll promise to think of you."

"Well, but," protested Erb, "what's the use?"

"Bah!" said Miss Luker, with a sudden burst of undisguised contempt, "I wouldn't be a dunderheaded man for anything."

Chapter IV

THE third round of deliveries was finished, and, arrived at his last evening, Erb, coat and collar off, washed away the traces of work in the stable pail with the aid of some aggressive soft soap that seemed to have its own way in everything. He had brought with him that morning a parcel of private clothes, and just before going out with the six o'clock turn, he had changed, and had handed in the corduroy uniform. A relief to feel that he no longer wore the brass buttons of servitude; of late they had seemed to reproach him. He had driven round the Surrey side with the air of a sporting gentleman taking out his own horse and trap; the private clothes helped him to say his good-byes with dignity to all, and especially to his old enemy, the van foreman.

"You _would_ go on in your own tin-pot way," said the van foreman regretfully, "no matter what I said. Your case ought to act as a warnin'."

"To _you_?"

"I _should_ 'ave thought," said the van foreman, with a wistful air, "after all that's passed between us we might as well part good friends, at any rate."

"Look here, old chap," said Erb good-temperedly, "_I_ tried to out you, and _you_ tried to out me; and you've got the best of it. I don't complain, but I'm not going to pretend I'm on friendly terms with a man when I ain't."

"That's what I say," retorted the van foreman argumentatively. "You've got no discretion."

The manners of William Henry had about them a fine blend of condescension; the lad came forward from the tail of the van and sat on a hamper, big with news. He had been approached that afternoon and informed that, consequent on the departure of Erb, there would be some changes, and would he, William Henry, accept the position of junior porter at fourteen shillings a week.

"I shall probably work on from that," said William Henry, "to some even higher position, and then on again. See? And if ever you want a friend, Erb--"

"I don't let boys call me Erb. Mr. Barnes, if you please."

"If I'm a boy," said William Henry thoughtfully, "I don't quite see where you're going to find your men. As I was a sayin', if ever you should be down in the gutter--and, mind you, there's unlikelier things than that--you come to me. It may be in my power to 'elp you. And I tell you what you can do for me in exchange. You might take the van 'ome to the stables by yourself, so that I can run round to Rotherhithe New Road and tell my young lady."

"_Your_ young lady!"

"And why not?" demanded William Henry with some indignation. "We ain't all like you."

It gratified Erb, as he parted his hair with an imperfect pocket comb, and tried to make the obstinate wisp at the back of his head remain flat, to think that he had the reputation of one who exhibited no sort of weakness in regard to women; this came in well with his profound attitude towards the world. He had had a letter from the tall upper housemaid at Eaton Square, to which he had sent no reply; indeed, the communication scarcely demanded an answer, for it furnished only information in regard to the weather, and a fervent hope that his health had not been impaired by his presence at the dance; it would not have remained in his memory but for one sentence, "Her young ladyship has spoken of you once or twice." An incomplete way of conveying a fact: something, of course, to know that she had referred to him, but it would have been more interesting to know the precise terms. He flushed at the appalling thought that she might have made some humorous comment on his behaviour.

Men balanced themselves on the edge of the kerb outside the "Druid's Arms," and whilst a swollen-faced cornet blared patriotic tunes at them from the opposite side in a ferocious way that permitted of no argument, some of the youngest tried to do a few steps of a dance. Two butchers, affecting to be rivals, chaffed each other derisively in raucous voices, one demanding to know how the widow was, and, on the second man replying incautiously, "What widder?" the first explained that he referred to the widow of the man who bought a joint at the second man's shop last Saturday week. A hoarse-voiced man sold cough tablets for the voice; a mild, sightless old man, with bootlaces, had an eager little girl with him, who cried shrilly and commandingly and unceasingly, "Petronise the belind, petronise the belind, petronise the--" Boys and girls thrust bunches of flowers against the noses of passers by; a depressed woman cried, "Twenty-four comic papers for a punny," with a catch in her voice that expressed regret at the small demand for humour. Erb nodded to the uniformed men whom he recognised, and, going into the bar, found his competitor Spanswick. Always a short, stout man, Spanswick to-night had every sign of his insufficient neck covered with white collar; Erb was pleased to see that Spanswick's tie had rucked up at the back.

Spanswick stopped suddenly in the remarks he was making to an interested group who stood leaning over him in the manner of palm trees, and, coming away, shook hands publicly and elaborately with Erb, as men in the boxing ring salute their opponents.

"Feeling fit?"

"Never better," said Erb. "How's yourself?"

"Bit of a cold," said Spanswick with important reserve; "but otherwise--"

If there is time, one would like to explain here Spanswick's position amongst the men. It was of that assured kind that newcomers do not dare to question, and contemporaries have agreed to respect. If this ever exhibited signs of waning, Spanswick would gather an audience together and beat the bounds of the incident that had made him a man to be treated with consideration, and the story had been re-told so many times, and so many improvements and additions had been made to it, that for the sake of true history the real facts may as well be set down.

Spanswick had given way to drink. To say this meant much, for at the time the limits set upon the consumption of beer by many of the carmen was only that fixed by their own capabilities. Spanswick's case must have been exceptional, and, indeed, he was so inclined, not so much to the bottle, perhaps, as to the quart, that his appearance on the morning following these carousals was truly deplorable: his strong-minded wife taking these opportunities to damage his face, with the eventual result that his van boy and his horse sneered at him openly. Wherefore Payne and a man named Kirby and another called Old Jim, decided, in the best interests of mankind at large, and of Spanswick in particular, that some steps should be taken, that it was for them to take these steps, and that the following Friday evening (being pay day) was the time to be selected. Payne's idea was this. They would run Spanswick to earth in one of his resorts, they would form a ring (or as much of a ring as three could make) around him, and by wise counsel and urgent illustration force upon him a recognition of the downward career that was his, and its inevitable end. It took some time to arrive at this decision, because Old Jim, who was not abreast of the times and of modern methods, had a remedy that included the dropping of the patient in the canal; whilst Kirby had another proposal. "Let us set the teetotal chaps on him," urged Kirby. Payne's scheme was adopted, and, the Friday night arriving, the three, after they had finished work, had a shave and a wash, and put on their best clothes (Payne himself wore a silk hat of adequate age, but of insufficient size), and they set out solemnly to take up their self-appointed duties.

"Now," said Old Jim, "the likeliest place is 'The World Turned Upside Down.'"

"Pardon me," said Kirby, with the politeness that comes with the wearing of Sunday clothes, "pardon me, but 'The Chequers' is his 'ouse."

"I thought," remarked Payne, "the 'Dun Cow' was."

"I'm prutty sure I'm right," said Old Jim.

"I'm jolly well certain you're both wrong," declared Kirby with emphasis.

"Standing here all night arguin'," decided Payne, "won't settle the matter. Let's make a start at one of them."

Spanswick was not in "The World Turned Upside Down," but the three had a drink there, because it would be notoriously a gross breach of etiquette to go from a public-house without ordering refreshment; to do this were to deride the landlord openly, and insinuate libels on his stock. At the next place the three went into each bar to make sure, and, having money in their pockets, it seemed like doing the thing well and completely to have a drink here in every bar, still discussing the painful case of poor old Spanny, regretting deeply the curse that liquor brought upon men who could not use it with discretion.

"It's good servant," said Old Jim, raising his glass and shutting one eye in order to see it clearly, "but bad mas'er. That's what I always says about it. It's a good mas'r, but-- What I mean to say is it's a bad servant--"

"Every man," declared Kirby, attempting to slap the counter, but missing it, "ought to know where to draw line."

"The chap who don't," agreed Payne, "(You're upsetting your glass, Jim, old man)--the chap who don't is like the beas's of field."

"Worse!" said Old Jim.

"No, not worse!" urged Payne obstinately.

"Fight you for it," offered Old Jim.

Kirby interfered and made peace, and throughout the evening, wherever they went in search of Spanswick, it happened that some two of the three were always quarrelling, whilst the third endeavoured to appease and conciliate. They were on the very edge of a triangular dispute in the last house of call when Payne, sobering himself for a moment, pointed out to the others that it was closing time, and they must not go to bed without feeling that something accomplished, something done, had earned a night's repose; necessary that they should proceed now with as much directness as possible to Spanswick's house, and (if they found him) there deliver the calculated words of warning, the prepared sentences of advice.

"'Ullo, old man," said Payne, as the door of Spanswick's house opened. "Many 'appy returns day."

"What's all this?" demanded Spanswick coldly. "Brought anything with you in a bottle?"

"We've brought good 'dvice," said Old Jim, seating himself on the sill. "How is it we didn't see you at any of the places?"

"The wife locked up me boots," replied Spanswick surlily. "That's why. But surely one of you's got a bottle about him somewheres. Search!"

"We want you, old chap," said Payne, steadying himself with a hand on either side of the doorway, "to give up the drink. 'Oh that man should put an en'my into his mouth to steal out his brains.' Chuck it, my friend, chuck it, before it is too late. Shun the flowing bowl, and save your money to buy harmonium with."

"I'll harmonium you," said Spanswick threateningly, "if you don't all three of you make yourselves precious scarce. How dare you come round here in this disgraceful condition to annoy a sober, honest man? Go to your 'omes and take an example by me. I never saw such a painful exhibition in all me life."

"How was we to know you'd be sober?" asked Kirby, swaying.

Spanswick emphasised the situation by remaining comparatively sober for a week; a busy week in other ways, for he lost no opportunity of reciting the incident of his own pure and heroic action, establishing thus a concrete foundation for the building up of a character that had never entirely disappeared.

(This is the story of carman Spanswick.)

One or two men standing at the zinc bar called on Erb to have a drink, but Erb replied, "Afterwards," and went up the wooden staircase to the club room. There, on the landing, men were consulting in undertones, which they changed for much louder speech on seeing Erb, commencing to talk noisily of contests with superiors whom they had, it appeared, worsted in argument; of fresh young horses that required a somewhat similar treatment; of trouble in regard to Shuts-up, to water allowances, to Brought-backs, and other technical matters. A late colleague of Erb's introduced him to those who were strangers, and Erb made quite a considerable effort to exhibit friendly manners, until a South Western man, mistaking him for Spanswick, told him some of the things that were being said about young Barnes, whereupon Erb left and went into the club room. In the club room tables had been arranged in something of the shape of a capital U, and at the base a wooden hammer had been placed and a decanter and tumbler; sheets of blue foolscap and scarlet blotting paper gave the room an official, business-like appearance. Payne was there in mufti as to coat, in uniform as to waistcoat and corduroy trousers; he was to be proposed as Chairman, and he stood now with his face to a Scotch whisky advertisement, his lips moving silently; he nodded to Erb, and went on with his rehearsal. Spanswick coming up with his _entourage_, took one of the sheets of paper and, with the stump of a pencil, began to make calculations which were audited, as he went on, by his friends. A few of the men marked the special nature of the proceedings by smoking cigars. The alert clock on the mantelpiece struck the half-hour in a sharp, energetic way and hurried on.

"I beg to move that Jack Payne do take the chair."

"I beg to second."

"All in favour," said the first voice. "On the contrary? Carried unanimously and nem. con. Jack" (turning to Mr. Payne), "in you go."

"In ordinary circs," said Payne, after he had taken the chair and had risen to some applause, "I'm perfectly well aware that the proper course to pursue at an affair like this is for the chair to call on the secretary to read the minutes of the last meeting. I know that without any of you telling me. But we're in the position to-night of not 'aving no secretary and not 'aving no previous meetin'."

The heads around the table nodded agreement. A gloomy man seated in the position that a vice-chairman might have occupied half rose and said, "Mr. Chairman, sir," and was at once pulled back into his chair by those near him.

"I was never a man," went on the Chairman, his forehead damp with nervousness, "to what you may call force me opinions on any body of men. 'Cepting once, and that was at New Cross in '89. I forget exactly what it was about, and I forget who was there, and I forget what I said, but the entire incident is quite fresh in my memory, and, as I say, that was the only occasion on which--"

"Question, question," cried the gloomy man at the other end of the room. His neighbours hushed him into silence.

"I'm coming to the question as fast as ever I can. Few know better than me how to conduct a meeting of this kind, although I say it p'raps as shouldn't, because it sounds like flattery, but it ain't flattery, it's only the truth. I've had it said to me over and over again, not once or twice, but many times--"

"Mr. Chairman, reely," said the gloomy man, "I must call you to order. We shall never get the business done this side of Chris'mas if--"

"Kindly sed down," ordered Mr. Payne, in tones of command, "or else resume your seat; one or the other. It's me," tapping his waistcoat, "me, sir, that calls people to order, not you."

The gloomy man argued in a loud whisper with his neighbours, and, on these counselling that he should simmer down, sat back in his chair, surveying the ceiling, his lips closed determinedly.

"First thing is shall we, being all of a trade, form a separate society, or shall we jolly well do the other thing? That's the point. Now then, who's going to give us a start? You, my friend, of the Great Eastern, down at the bottom of this left 'and table, you seem to have a lot to say, p'raps we might give you ten minutes and see whether or not there's any sense in you."

The gloomy man affected deafness until this had been explained to him by those sitting near, on which he told them rather haughtily that he spoke when he liked, and not when he was called upon.

"Then we must throw the 'andkerchief to somebody else. Spanswick, you might set the ball a-rolling. Don't be longer than you can 'elp."

Erb watched. The impression that his rival made now would affect the later decision, and Erb could not help wishing that Spanswick might prove halting in utterance and clumsy of speech. Cheers greeted Spanswick; some of the men looked at Erb, as they slapped the table with the palms of their hands to see how _he_ took it, and Erb remembered, just in time, to join in the compliment. He recovered his hopefulness as soon as Spanswick spoke, for he noted that his opponent started with great rapidity of utterance, speaking also overloudly--encouraging facts both. Spanswick was, of course, urging that they should form a separate society, but he had no arguments, only hurried expressions of his own opinion. Erb, with his eyes on a sheet of foolscap paper, noticed that the room relaxed its attention; the gloomy man had his watch out, and was clearly preparing to shout at the appropriate moment, "Time, time!" Spanswick halted and went over one sentence twice, word for word. Then he stopped altogether, and the silent room saw him endeavour to recall his fleeting memory, saw him take from the inside pocket of his coat the entire speech and laboriously find the place.

"Beg pardon," cried the gloomy man, starting up, "but is a member entitled to read--"

Spanswick, with now and again an anxious glance at Erb, read the remainder of his speech in a shamed undertone. There was but little cheering when he finished; he was called up again because he had forgotten to move the resolution. Four men competed for the honour of seconding this.

"Now then!" said the Chairman, with relish, "let's go on in a orderly manner. First thing is, any amendment? No amendment? Vurry well, then! Now, is there any further remarks? The subject hasn't been, if I may say so, thor'ly threshed out yet, and if-- Thank you! Friend Barnes will now address the meeting."

Erb rose with the slight nervousness that he always felt in commencing a speech. He began slowly and quietly: the Great Eastern man saw his chance for an interruption, and shouted, "Let's 'ear you," but Erb took no notice. They were there, he said, to inaugurate a great work, a work to which some of them had given a considerable amount of care, and the scheme was so far advanced that he thought he could place a few details before them for consideration. There had been the grave question whether they should join the general society of London carmen, or whether they should form an independent society of their own.

"On a point of order, sir--" began the gloomy man.

"If there is one man," said Erb, raising his voice, "in this room who is absolutely ignorant of order it is our Great Eastern friend at the other end of the room. A yelping little terrier that runs after a van doesn't make the van go faster."

The room, now very crowded with uniformed men, especially near the doorway, approved this, and the Great Eastern man first looked round for support from his own colleagues, and, obtaining none, began to take desperate notes as Erb went on.

"I can't waste time over a man who can only interrupt: I address myself to you. First, let me put my friend Spanswick right on a small detail. He urged that we should work quietly and secretly"--(cheers from Spanswick's supporters)--"I disagree! I fail to see the usefulness of that. I think that all we do should be fair and above board, and I say this because if you combine, and let the railway companies see that you are combining, you will be treated with greater respect. See what's happened in the case of my own late fellow carmen! It's true I was sacrificed, but let that pass; see what advantages _they_ got, just for the asking. They got--"

Payne's watch must have been suddenly affected, for he allowed Erb to speak for more than the period of ten minutes; no one complained; they were all too much interested. When Erb, in a fiery peroration, appealed to them to extend the recent action and make it general, with a strong reference to individualism, which they did not understand, and about which Erb himself was not quite sure, then the supporters of Spanswick forgot their reticence and cheered with the rest.

"And I trust," added Erb modestly and finally, "that I 'aven't took up too much of your time."

The resolution was carried.

"Now," said the Chair, "if any of you thought of standing me a drink, or even of 'aving one yourself, p'raps you'll seize the opportunity whilst the waiters are in the room, and then we can shut them out whilst we go on to the next bisness."

"Erb!" cried Spanswick along the table, "what's yours?"

It was felt that this was a great piece of strategy on Spanswick's part, and Erb's refusal counted nothing for righteousness; one or two of Erb's supporters shook their heads to intimate that this was not diplomacy. The waiters brought in japanned trays of glasses on their high, outstretched palms, carrying change everywhere, in their pockets, in their tweed caps, in a knot in their handkerchiefs, in their mouths. They completed their work in a few minutes and went, obeying leisurely the Chairman's imperious wave of the hammer.

"We come, now," said Payne loudly, "to what I venture to term the principal item on the agender. That is, the appointment of seceretary." Both Erb and Spanswick showed signs of puzzled astonishment. "There's no less than two suggestions that have been 'anded up: one is that we should 'ave a honery seceretary, which I may explain for the benefit of some, means one who will perform his services in a honery way: the other is that we should 'ave a paid seceretary, which means that we should have to plank down about a 'undred a year, otherwise, two quid a week, and that'd cover his slight travelling expenses. There's a good deal," added the Chair impartially, "to be said on both sides, and, at this stage of the proceedings, I don't attempt to dictate. This room's a bit warmish, and if you don't mind me taking off my coat, why, I shall be more comfortable than what I am at the present moment."

The men around the table imitated example, and, hanging their jackets on the backs of the chairs, addressed themselves to the new subject.

"What?" said the Chair. "You woke up again?"

"I should like to ask," said the gloomy Great Eastern man, ignoring this remark, "whether there's any sense in paying a 'undred pounds a year for a article that we can get for nothing? That's all I want to know."

"Argue the point, my good sir," urged the Chair, "argue in a speech."

"I've said my say," retorted the other stubbornly.

"If it was the self-same article," said the Chair, shaking his hammer in a friendly way towards the Great Eastern man, "then I should be with you. But is it?" The shirt sleeves rested on the tables; the men began to show renewed interest.

"I asked a plain question, I want a plain answer!"

"Oh!" said the Chair, disgustedly, "you go to--well, I won't say where. You've got no more idea of conducting a meeting than this 'ammer. Why don't someone prepose a resolution?"

"Beg--propose," said a young man desperately, "my friend Spanswick--honery sec'tary--new society."

"Beg second that," jerked another youth.

"In view of the fac'," said a South Eastern man, half rising, "that if you want a thing done well you ought to pay for it, I think we ought to 'ave a man who'll devote his whole energies to the work. Therefore, I beg to suggest Erb Barnes as--as--"

"Organisin' secretary!" whispered a neighbour.

"I second that vote--mean to say, resolution."

"Any other names?" asked the Chair. "Very good then! Now, I shall ask these two chaps to kindly retire, in other words, to leave the room, so as to leave us free to discuss--"

"Point of order occurs to me," interrupted the gloomy Great Eastern man acutely, "Can they leave the room?"

The room watched Erb and Spanswick as the two made their way behind the chairs to the doorway. Erb opened the door, and motioned to Spanswick to go first, but Spanswick, not to be outdone in politeness, declined absolutely, insisting that Erb should take precedence, and when they decided to stop the display of courtesy, both blundered out at the same moment. As they closed the door behind them they heard several voices addressing the chair.

"Ever gone in for scarlet runners?" asked Spanswick. "I've only got a little bit of a garden, but I suppose there isn't another man in Rotherhithe that grows the scarlet runners I do; people come from far and near to see 'em. There's a good deal of art, mind you, in the stickin' of 'em. Sunflowers, too! I've had tremendous luck with my sunflowers. I believe I could grow most anything in my little back place if it wasn't for the cats. Vurry good plan of dealin' with cats--"

Erb allowed his rival to make conversation whilst he himself considered the importance of these moments that were passing. He looked hard at a picture on the walls of the landing, a picture representing a cheerful Swiss valley and advertising Somebody's Ginger Beer; the villagers held goblets containing (presumably) this beverage, and toasted the snow-topped mountains at the back. He forced himself to recognise that his chances were small; unless he had made a particularly good impression by his speech he had no chance at all; he would have to commence to-morrow morning a round of calls on master carmen and on contracting firms with the obsequious inquiry, "You don't 'appen to want a hand, I s'pose?" and receiving the negative reply. He had obtained a clean character from the Railway Company, and the Chief had wished him good-luck, but the information that he was a stirabout would fly round in advance of him, and all the best places would be on the defensive. It might come to driving a cheap coal van, otherwise known as working in the slate business. There was an alternative even less agreeable to think of. He knew one or two men who had just missed being leaders of labour, who sometimes opened debates at Clubs, and were paid fairly liberal expenses, who were sometimes approached by the capitalists to stump through London in an endeavour to lash working men into a state of indignation in regard to Foreign Competition, Sugar Bounties, or the tyranny of Trades Unions, or some other subject for which the capitalists had affection: these men at times coalesced and, urged by a common jealousy, denounced some prominent men of their own party, and found their names mentioned in the opposition journals, the reporters of which bribed them in order to obtain exclusive information of semi-public meetings. Erb told the Swiss valley that it would be long ere he came down to that.

"You take a spade," exclaimed his companion, "an ornery spade will do, and you dig it in the garden like so, and what do you find? Why you find--"

Young Louisa would be disappointed too. Louisa had been less successful since the servants' dance at Eaton Square in cloaking her admiration for her brother, and the last young man had been dismissed with ignominy because he showed hesitation in sacrificing his own views on political subjects and accepting those held by Erb. If he had not already passed from the memory of Lady Frances, she might perhaps inquire of Alice the result of the meeting, and, hearing it, would smile agreeably and push him away from her thoughts. To be shown through Bermondsey by an official in the labour world would be one thing; to be conducted by a grimy-faced carman was another. And there was Rosalind--Rosalind--what was her other name?

"Now, in regard to meenure," said Spanswick dogmatically, "the long and short of the matter is simply this."

He had found in Southampton Street, Camberwell, on the previous day (being on the Surrey side round), a painted board on a house announcing here, "Elocution and Public Speaking Taught! Pupils prepared for the Dramatic Stage! Apply within to Professor Danks!" and it then occurred to him that this was the address given him by the footman in Eaton Square. The front garden was filled with monumental statues belonging to an undertaker next door, and engraved with names and dates, tombstones which for some inexplicable reason had not been used. He had gone up the uneven pavement from the front gate to the door and had knocked there, but the door being opened by the tall, bright-eyed girl, plainly and economically dressed, and with a suggestion of care near to her bright eyes, he had for some extraordinary reason, muttered "Beg pardon. Wrong number!" and had stumbled back to the gate, hot-faced with confusion. He knew that his powers of speech lacked refinement, and one or two finishing lessons would work miracles: he might perhaps learn how to aspirate without the show of pain and anxiety that he exhibited now when he endeavoured to observe the trying rule. The bright-eyed girl, he remembered, had stood at the doorway looking after him rather reproachfully.

"Of course," said the injured voice of Spanswick, "if it's too much trouble for you to listen, why it isn't any use me talking."

"Sorry," he said absently. "Fact is, I don't take very much interest in gardening."

"I was talking about poultry."

"They both come under the same head," remarked Erb.

"I suppose, as a matter of fact, you're pretty keen on this 'ere job?"

"They're a long time deciding," said Erb.

"I've been expectin'," Spanswick made circles on the landing with his right foot in a hesitating way, "I've been expectin' that you'd approach me and ask me to withdraw from the contest."

"What'd be the use of that?"

"Well," said Spanswick in a mysterious whisper, "you know what Shakespeare says?"

"He said a lot."

"You're a mere kid in these matters," remarked the other contemptuously, walking away to the other end of the landing. "Haven't you never 'eard of buying off the opposition? In the present case, suppose you was to say, 'Spanny, old man, is twen'y-five bob any use to you?' and I should answer 'Well, I could do with it,' and you paid the money over 'ere." Spanswick held out one hand. "And I said, 'Well, now, come to think of it, what's the good of this job to me? I shan't make nothing out of it, unless it is a silver teapot for the missus; I'll withdraw my nomination and leave you a clear field.' See?"

"Upon my word," exclaimed Erb indignantly, "upon my word if you ain't the biggest--"

"Mind you," interrupted the other, "I was only putting a suppositious case." The door of the club room opened, and a voice said importantly, "Spanswick and Barnes, this way, please." They turned to obey. "There y'are," said Spanswick reproachfully, "you've left it too late."

Looking over the banisters, Erb saw that women-folk had arrived, charged with the double duty of listening to the coming concert and of conveying their male relatives home at a reasonable hour. Louisa's white young face glanced up at him with a twitch, and asked anxiously whether it was all over; Erb replied that, on the contrary, it was just about to begin.

"Kindly take your former seats," said the Chairman importantly. The chattering room became quiet as the two men entered, and Payne rapped with his hammer for silence. "The voting has come out," he went on, looking at some figures on the sheet of foolscap before him, "the voting has come out 29 on one side and 14 on the other."

The rattle of conversation recommenced.

"Less noise there, less noise!" cried the Chair urgently. "I can't 'ear meself talk."

"Wish we couldn't," remarked the Great Eastern man from his end of the table.

"Be careful, my friend," said the Chair warningly. "Be careful, or else I shall rule you out of order. I have the pleasure now of calling on my friend Erb Barnes." The room cheered. "Order, please, for Erb Barnes."

"What have I got to talk about?" demanded Erb.

"Talk about?" echoed the Chair amazedly. "Talk about? Why, you've got to acknowledge in a few appropriate words your appointment as paid organisin' secretary of the Railway Carmen's Society."

Chapter V

ERB entered upon his duties with appetite. The single office of the new society was a spare room over a coffee tavern in Grange Road, and the first disbursement was for the painting on the window in bold white letters the full title of the society, with the added words, "Herbert Barnes, secretary." (Young Louisa went five minutes out of her way, morning and evening, in order to see this proclamation of her brother's name.) To the office came Erb promptly every morning at an hour when the attendants at the coffee-room were on their knees scrubbing, chairs set high on tables, and forms on end against the walls, and the young women were a good deal annoyed by the fact that Erb, in these circumstances, bestowed on them none of the chaff and badinage which were as necessary to their existence as the very air. When he had gone through the post letters--the more there were of these the more contented he was--and had answered them on post-cards, he went out, fixing a notice on the door, "Back Shortly. Any messages leave at Bar," and hurried to some railway depot, or some point where railway carmen were likely to congregate, hurrying non-members into becoming members, passing the word round in regard to public meetings, hunting for grievances, and listening always, even when some, with erroneous ideas of his duties, requested advice in regard to some domestic trouble with lodgers, or insubordination on the part of babes. All this meant visits to Paddington, to Willesden, to Dalston, to Poplar, to Nine Elms: it gave to him a fine sensation of ruling London and, in some way, the thought that he was repairing errors made by the Creator of the world. He came in contact with the white-haired Labour member of Parliament, and watched his manner closely; the Labour member invited Erb one evening to the House of Commons, and Erb found that the Labour member had for the House a style differing entirely from that which he used in other places, measuring words with care, speaking with deliberation, and avoiding all the colloquialisms and the jagged sentences that made him popular when he addressed outdoor meetings. And as all young men starting the journey through life model themselves on some one who has arrived, Erb determined to acquire this admirable alternative manner.

Thus it was that one Thursday evening he took courage by the hand, and went Camberwell way to call again at the house where on his previous visit he had made undignified departure because of a pair of rather bright eyes. He thought of her with some nervousness as he went down Camberwell New Road, and, putting aside for a moment the serious matters, gave himself the joy of reviewing his female acquaintances. He had just come to the sage decision that different women exacted entirely different tributes, some demanding reverence, others admiration, and others something more fervent, when he found himself at the gate and the uneven path between the monumental statuary that led to the door of Professor Danks's house. The street was one affecting to make a short cut to Queen's Road, Peckham, but it did not really make a short cut; within its crescent form it included new model dwellings of a violent red, elderly houses with red verandahs, a Liberal Club, and a chapel. A part of the road had undergone the process of being shopped, which is to say that the long useless front gardens had been utilised, and anxious, empty, unsuccessful young establishments came out to the pavement, expending all their profits on gas, and making determined efforts either by placard or minatory signs to persuade the passers-by that business was enormous, and that it was with difficulty that customers could be checked in their desire to patronise. One had started with the proud boast, "Everything at Sixpence-halfpenny," and had later altered the six to five, and the five to four; only necessary to allow time, and there seemed some good prospect that the reckless shop would eventually give its contents free. Erb pulled at the bell handle, and it came out obligingly.

"Now you 'ave gone and done it," said the small servant who opened the door. "That's clever, that is. I suppose you get medals for doing tricks like that? Well, well," she continued fractiously, as Erb made no reply, "don't stand there like a great gawk with the knob in your 'and. What d'you want?"

"Might Professor Danks be in?" asked Erb.

"He might and he might not," explained the small servant. "He's jest sleepin' it off a bit on the sofa."

"Can I see anyone else?"

"Come in," said the girl with a burst of friendliness. "Never mind about wipin' your boots; it's getting to the end of the week. You could see _her_ if you didn't mind waiting till she's finished giving a lesson."

"Shall I wait here in the passage?"

"Don't disturb him," whispered the girl, "if I let you rest your weary bones in the back room." She opened the door of the back room quietly. "_She's_ as right as rain," whispered the girl confidently, "but _he_--" The girl gave an expressive wave of the hand, signifying that the Professor was not indispensable to the world's happiness. Erb went in. "I'd stay and chat to you," she said through the doorway, "only there's my ironin'. I've got the 'ole 'ouse to look after, mind you, besides answering the front door."

"Takes a bit of doing, no doubt."

"You never said a truer word," whispered the short servant. "There's pictures in that magazine you can look at. If you want me, 'oller 'Lizer!' over the banisters."

Professor Danks, asleep on the sofa, had the _Era_ over his face for better detachment from a wakeful world: the paper was slipping gradually, and Erb, watching him over the top of the book, knew that the eclipse would be over and the features fully visible in a few minutes. Meanwhile, he noticed that the Professor was a large, heavy man, with snowy hair at one end, and slippers which had walked along muddy pavements at the other; not a man, apparently, of active habits.

"I fear I shall never make anything of you," her decided voice came from the front room. "You don't pay attention. You don't seem to remember what I tell you."

"Mustn't be too harsh with my husband, miss," said a voice with the South London whine. "We all have to make a beginning, don't forget that."

"Now, sir. Once more, please, we'll go through this piece of poetry. And when you say the first lines, 'Give others the flags of foreign states,' show some animation; don't say the words casually, as though you were talking of the weather."

"You understand, miss," interposed the pupil's wife, "that he's made up the words out of his own head."

"I am sure of that," with a touch of sarcasm.

"But, whilst he's very clever in putting poetry together, he is not so good--I'm speaking, Albert dear, for your own benefit--he is not so good in reciting of them. And we go out into Society a great deal (there's two parties on at New Cross only next month that we're asked to), and what I thought was that it would be so nice any time when an evening began to go a bit slow for me to say casually, ye know, 'Albert, what about that piece you made up yourself?' Then for him to get up and recite it in a gentlemanly way."

"Come now," said the instructress, "'Give others the flags of foreign states, I care not for them a jot.'"

"Of course," interposed the wife again, "his high-pitched voice is against him, but that's his misfortune, not his fault. Also you may think that he's left it rather late to take up with elocution. If we'd ever had any children of our own--"

"I really think," said the girl, "that we must get on with the lesson. Now, sir, if you please. 'Give others the flags.'"

The _Era_ had slipped from the Professor's red face, and the swollen, poached-egg eyes moved, the heavy eyelids made one or two reluctant efforts to unclose. The room, Erb thought, looked as though it were troubled by opposing forces, one anxious to keep it neat and keep it comfortable, the other with entirely different views, and baulking these efforts with some success. Erb saw the household clearly and felt a desire to range himself on the side of order.

"Good evening," he said, when the leaden eyelids had decided to open. "Having your little nap, sir?"

The Professor sat up, kneading his eyes and then rubbing his white hair violently.

"I have been," he said, in a voice that would have sounded important if it had not been hoarse, "making a brief excursion into the land of dreams." He clicked his tongue. "And a devil of a mouth I've got on me, too." He rose heavily and went to a bamboo table where two syphons were standing, tried them, and found they were empty. "A curse," he said, "on both your houses."

"I've called about some lessons."

"Lessons!" repeated the Professor moodily. "That I, Reginald Danks, should be reduced to this! I, who might have been at the Lyceum at the present moment but for fate and Irving. How many lessons," he asked with a change of manner, "do you require, laddie?"

"I thought about six," said Erb.

"Make it a dozen. We offer thirteen for the price of twelve."

"What would that number run me into? I want them more for public speaking than anything else."

"We shall do the whole bag of tricks for you," said the Professor, placing an enormous hand on Erb's shoulder, "for a mere trifle."

"Who is 'we?'"

"Rather should you say, 'To whom is it that you refer?' In this self-appointed task of imparting the principles of voice production and elocution to the--to the masses," the Professor seemed to restrain himself forcibly from using a contumelious adjective, "I have the advantage of valuable assistance from my daughter. Her system is my system, her methods are my methods, her rules are my rules. If at any time I should be called away on professional business," here the Professor passed his hand over his lip, "my daughter, Rosalind, takes my place. What is your age?"

Erb gave the information.

"Ah," the Professor sighed deeply, "in '74 I was with Barry Sullivan doing the principal towns in a repertoire. No, I'm telling you a lie. It was not in '74. It was in the autumn of '73. I played Rosencrantz and the First Grave-digger--an enormous success."

"Which?"

"I went from Barry Sullivan to join the 'Murderous Moment' Company, and that," said the Professor, striking his waistcoat, "was perhaps one of the biggest triumphs ever witnessed on the dramatic stage. From that hour, sir, from that hour I never looked back."

The high-voiced pupil in the front room finished his lesson, and his wife took him off with the congratulatory remark that he promised well to make her relatives at forthcoming parties sit up with astonishment. The Professor's daughter, seeing them both to the front door, remarked that her pupil would be able to find his way alone the next time, whereupon the pupil's wife answered darkly, "Do you really think I should let him go out?"

"Shall I settle with you?" asked Erb.

"My daughter Rosalind," said the Professor regretfully, "insists, as a general rule, on taking charge of the business side, but on this occasion--"

"If that's the rule," interrupted Erb, "don't let's break it. I don't want any misunderstanding about matters of cash."

"There have been times in my life, sir, when money has been as nothing to me. Will you believe that there was a time in my professional career when I earnt twenty guineas--twenty of the best--per week?"

"Since you ask me, my answer is 'No.'"

"You are quite right," said the Professor, and in no way disconcerted. "Let us be exact in our statements or perish. Not twenty guineas, twenty pounds. But that," he went on rather hurriedly, "that was at a time when real acting, sir, was appreciated. Nowadays they walk in from the streets. Ee-locution is a lost art; acting, real acting, is not to be seen on the London boards. If you have a cigarette about you, I can get a light from the fireplace."

Erb acted upon this hint, and listened for the girl's voice.

"Her mother," went on the Professor, puffing at the cigarette, and then looking at it disparagingly, "her mother before she fell ill--mind, I'm not complaining--was perhaps, without exception, the most diversified arteest that ever graced the dramatic stage. Ingenue, old woman, soubrette, nothing came amiss to her. That was the difference between us--she liked work. And when, just before the end, when I'd been out of engagement for some time, she had an offer for the pair of us, two pounds ten the couple, such was her indomitable spirit that she actually wanted to accept it. But I said 'No.' I put my foot down. I admit," said the Professor genially, "that I lost my temper with her. I told her pretty definitely that I had made up my mind--"

"Your _what_?" inquired Erb.

"That poverty I could face, dee-privation I could endure, hunger and thirst I could welcome with o-pen arms, but a contemptuous proposition such as this I could not, should not, and would not tolerate. I repeated this," added the Professor with a fine roll and a sweep of the left hand, "at the inquest."

"You're a nice one, I don't think," said Erb critically. "How is it they let you live on?"

"Laddie," said the Professor, tearfully, "my life is not an enviable one even now. My own daughter--Soft!--she comes."

It occurred to Erb later that in his anxiety to show himself a careless, self-possessed fellow, he rather overdid it, presenting himself in the light of one slightly demented. He nodded his head on formal introduction by the Professor, hummed a cheerful air, and, taking out a packet of cigarette papers, blew at one, and recollecting, twisted the detached slip into a butterfly shape and puffed it to the ceiling. The girl looked at him, at her father, then again at Erb. She had a pencil resting between the buttons of her pink blouse, and but for a slight contraction of the forehead that is the public sign of private worry, would have been a very happy-looking young person indeed.

"A would-be student," said her father with a proud wave of the hand towards Erb, as though he had just made him, "a would-be student, my love: one anxious to gain at our hands the principles of voice pro-duction and ee-locution."

"When do you propose to begin, sir?" she asked, limping slightly as she went to a desk.

"Soon as your father's ready, miss."

"I have heard you speak in the park."

"Most people have!" replied Erb, with a fine assumption of indifference.

"I'll just register your name, please."

"Our sys-tem," said the Professor oracularly, as Erb bent over her and gave the information (there was a pleasant warm scent from her hair), "is to conduct everything in a perfectly businesslike manner. I remember on one occasion Mr. Phelps said to me, 'Danks, my dear young friend, never, never--' My dear Rosalind, give me the word. What was it," the Professor tapped his large forehead reprovingly, "what was it I was talking about?"

"I don't think it matters, father. You pay in advance, please," she said to Erb. "Thank you. I'm not sure that I have sufficient change in the house."

"I will step down the road," suggested the Professor with a slight excess of eagerness, "and obtain the necessary--"

"No, father."

"Think I've got just enough silver," said Erb.

"Thank you, Mr. Barnes."

Good to be called Mister, better still to find it accompanied by a smile of gratitude that somehow also intimated comradeship and a defensive alliance against the ingenious Professor. The Professor, affecting to examine a pimple on his chin at the mirror, looked at his daughter's reflection in an appealing way; but she shook her head quickly. The Professor sighed and, turning back the cuffs of his shirt, put on an elderly velvet jacket.

"I have some work to do downstairs," she said, with a curt little bow to Erb. "You will excuse me."

"Only too pleased, miss," he said blunderingly.

"Father, you will give Mr. Barnes an hour, please, in the front room. I will come up when the time is--"

"Then I needn't say good-bye," remarked Erb gallantly.

The Professor in the front room declaimed to the new pupil a passage from the "Merchant of Venice," from the centre of the carpet, and then invited him to repeat it, which Erb did, the Professor arresting him at every line, correcting the accent with acerbity and calling attention to the aspirates with something like tears. "Why don't you speak naturally, sir?" demanded the Professor, hitting his own chest with his fist, "as I dew?" At the end of twenty minutes, when the Professor had furnished some really valuable rules in regard to the artifices of voice production, he gave a sudden dramatic start, and begged Erb for pity's sake not to tell him that the day was Thursday and the hour half-past seven. On Erb admitting his inability to give him other information without stepping beyond the confines of truth, the Professor strode up and down the worn carpet in a state of great agitation, declaring that unless he were in the Strand by eight fifteen, or, at the very latest, eight twenty that evening, he would, in all probability, lose the chance of a lifetime.

"What am I to do?" he asked imploringly. "I appeal to you, laddie? Show me where duty calls?"

On Erb suggesting that perhaps Miss Rosalind would finish the lesson, the Professor shook him warmly by both hands and ordered heaven in a dictatorial way to rain down blessings on the head of his pupil. One difficulty remained. Time pressed, and every moment was (in all probability) golden. Could Mr. Barnes, as an old friend, oblige with half a--no, not half a crown, two shillings. The Professor, in the goodness of his heart, did not mind four sixpences, and hurrying out into the passage, struggled into a long brown overcoat of the old Newmarket shape, took his soft hat, and, having called over the banisters to his daughter to favour him with a moment's conversation, bustled through the passage whispering to Erb, "You can explain better than I," and going out, closed the door quietly. There were signs of flour on the girl's plump arms as she came up; she rolled down the sleeves of the pink blouse as she entered the front room. Her forehead contracted as she listened.

"How much did he borrow?" she asked, checking a sigh.

"Nothing," replied Erb boldly.

"Two shillings or a half a crown?"

"But I couldn't possibly think for a moment--" he began protestingly.

"I wish you had," she said. "Take it, please. I don't want father to run into debt if I can help it."

"Makes me feel as though I'm robbing you."

"Do you know," said Miss Rosalind, with not quite half a smile, "it makes me feel as though I were being robbed. Let us get on with the lesson, please; I have another pupil coming at half-past eight." Erb, for a hot moment, was consumed with unreasonable jealousy of the next pupil. "She is always punctual," added Rosalind, and Erb became cooler. "Take this book, please, and read aloud the passage I have marked."

There were faded photographs on the mantelpiece of ladies with exuberant smiles, calculated to disarm any criticism in regard to their eccentric attire, their signatures sprawled across the lower right hand corner, "Ever yours most affectionate!" A frame that had seen stormy days outside provincial theatres hung on the wall with the address of its last exhibition half rubbed off. Erb as he listened to the girl's serious corrections and warning, guessed that the half-dozen portraits it contained were all of Rosalind's mother; they ranged from one as Robinson Crusoe with a white muff to a more matronly representation of (judging from her hat) a designing Frenchwoman holding a revolver in one hand, and clearly prepared to use this. In another she was fondling a child, whose head and face were almost covered by a stage wig, and the child bore some far-away resemblance to the present instructress. On Rosalind limping across the room to place on the fire an economical lump of coal, Erb framed an expression of sympathy; common-sense most fortunately gagged him.

"You left school when you were very young?" said the girl, looking over her shoulder from the fireplace.

"Pawsed the sixth standard when I was--"

"Oh, please, please! Don't say pawsed."

"I passed the sixth standard when I was twelve, because I had to. Father was Kentish born, mother wasn't. Both died in the"--Rosalind put her hands apprehensively to her ears--"in the hospital in one week, both in one week, and I had to set to and get shot of the Board School and go out."

"As?" she asked curiously.

"As chief of the Transport Department to the principal railway companies," said Erb glibly, "and personal friend, and, I may say, adviser to his Royal--"

"We will proceed," said Rosalind, haughty on the receipt of sarcasm, "with the lesson, please. There is much to be done in the way of eradicating errors in your speech."

The reliable lady pupil due at eight thirty spoilt her record by arriving half an hour late. Thus, when Erb's lesson was finished and the clock on the mantelpiece gave the hour in a hurried asthmatic way, there was still time for polite conversation on a variety of topics; the house, Erb discovered, was not theirs, they only occupied furnished apartments; they had lived in many parts of London, because, said Rosalind cautiously, the Professor liked a change now and again. Erb backed slowly towards the door as each subject was discussed, anxious to stay as long as possible, but more anxious still to make his exit with some clever impressive final remark. He found her book of notices, and insisted politely on reading the neatly pasted slips cut from the "Hornsey Express," the "South London Journal," the "Paddington Magpie," and other newspapers of repute, which said "Miss Rosalind Danks in her recitals made the hit of the evening, and the same may be said of all the other artists on the programme." That "Miss R. Danks, as our advertisement column shows, is to give An Evening with the Poets and Humorists at our Town Hall on Thursday evening. We wish her a bumper." That "Miss Rosalind Danks's _naivete_ of manner and general _chic_ enabled her in an American contribution to score a terrific 'succes d'estime.' She narrowly escaped an enthusiastic _encore_." That "Miss Danks lacks some of the charms necessary for a good platform appearance--"

"I'd like to argue the point with the man who wrote that," said Erb.

"They have to fill the paper with something," remarked Miss Rosalind.

"For a good platform appearance, but she has a remarkably distinct enunciation, and some of her lines could be heard almost distinctly at the back of the hall." That "Miss Danks comes of a theatrical stock, and her father is none other than the celebrated Mr. Reginald Danks, whose Antonio still remains in the memory of the few privileged to witness it. Mr. Reginald Danks informs us that he has had several offers from West End theatres, but that he has some idea of going in for management himself as soon as a convenient playhouse can be secured. Of this, more anon."

It was natural when Erb had looked through these notices that he should find in his pocket two or three copies of a small poster advertising a lecture by him on the forthcoming Sunday evening, at a hall in Walworth Road. "Mr. Herbert Barnes," said the poster loudly, adding in a lower voice, "Organising Secretary Railway Carmen's Union, will speak on The Working Man: What Will Become of Him? No collection. Discussion invited." Erb gave Miss Rosalind one of these as a present, and then said, "Well now, I must be off," as though he had been detained greatly against his will.

And here it was that Erb made one of those mistakes of commission which the most reliable of us effect at uncertain intervals. He took up the photograph of a fur-coated young man, clean-shaven face, thin lips, and not quite enough of chin.

"And who," asked Erb pityingly, "who might this young toff be?"

"He is stage manager," she said rather proudly, "to a company touring in the provinces. Plays too."

"Relation?"

"Not yet," said Rosalind.

As Erb blundered through the passage Rosalind warned him to attend to the home-work she had given him to do, and to come promptly to his next lesson; she held the door open until Erb went out of the gate, a new politeness which he acknowledged by lifting his hat. He had never lifted his hat to a lady before, and had always smiled contemptuously when he had seen gallant youths performing this act of respect. To atone for this retrograde movement he ran against the tardily-arriving lady pupil, and went on without apology. The lady pupil ejaculated, "Clown!" and Erb felt that he had righted himself in his own estimation.

He looked about him as he walked up the crowded pavement towards the Elephant and Castle, because it was always one of his duties to recognise the railway vans. Disappointment clouded his eyes: he blamed himself for so far forgetting the principal duty of his life as to waste time on unremunerative investments. This was why he missed a Brighton goods van standing with its pair of horses near a large shop in Newington Causeway; the van boy reported Erb's negligence to his mate when he returned, and this coming on the top of other annoying circumstances, the Brighton man said to himself, "This shall be chalked up against you, young Erb."

Erb reached Page's Walk, having tried ineffectually to walk himself into a good humour, and found Louisa with a round spot of colour high up on either cheek, looking out of the window of the model dwellings and hailing him excitedly.

"Put that 'ead of yours in," he counselled. "You'll go and catch cold."

"You won't catch much," retorted Louisa, "if you don't arrange to be on 'and when wanted. 'Urry upstairs, I've got something to tell you that can't be bawled."

Erb ran up the stone stairs, and Louisa met him at the door of the sitting-room, her