"I'm an eventuality," said Foe.
"You'll be one of us, sir, before you've finished, never fear!" the little steward promised genially.
We entered amid salvos of applause, again and again renewed. It was none of our earning nor intended for us. Jenkinson (I was afterwards told) had varied his peroration with a local allusion very cleverly introduced. "They probably knew him" (he said)—"those, at any rate, who happened to live near Kennington probably knew him—for one who earned his living by a form of sport, by a mere game, if they preferred so to call it." (Cheers.) "He was not there to defend himself, still less to defend cricket." (Hear, hear.) "He would only say that cricket was a game which demanded some skill and— especially when one bowled at the Oval" (loud cheers) "against Surrey" (cheers loud and prolonged)—"often some endurance." (Laughter.) "He would add that cricket was a thoroughly English game." (Renewed cheers.) "Why do I mention cricket to-night, sir?"—Jenkinson swung round and demanded it of the Chairman, who hadn't a notion. "I mention it, sir, because players have sometimes said to me, 'Jenkinson, I wonder you always seem to enjoy yourself at the Oval.' 'Why not?' says I; 'the crowd's friendly and the pitch perfect.' 'That's just it,' they say; 'perfect to break a bowler's heart.' 'Never you mind.' I answers: 'Tom Jenkinson, when he gets into Surrey, isn't out for averages.'" (Can't you hear the cheers at that?) "'He's out for fine art and a long day at it in pleasant surroundings: and,' I winds up, 'if you reckon I sometimes take a while, down there, to bowl a man out, just you wait till I come down and help to bowl a man in!' Your servant, Mr. Farrell!"
Neat, eh? Well, we made our entrance right on top of it: and though the great Bath was no more than three-parts full, you couldn't see a vacant seat, the audience rocked so.
Now I must tell you a queer thing.… You know what it feels like when you're talking away easily, maybe laughing, and all of a sudden the Bosch puts in one that you feel means business? Something in the sound of the devil makes you scatter.… Well, I can't explain it, but through the noise of the stamping, hand-clapping, cheering, all of a sudden and without rhyme or reason, I seemed to hear the shriek of something distant, sinister, menacing.… Oh, I'm not an imaginative fellow. Very likely it was a note set up by the wind outside. I can't even swear that I heard it; sort of took it down my spine. Shrill it was for a moment—something between a child's wail and the hiss of a snake—and, the next moment, not shrill at all, but dull and heavy, like the flap of a great wing beating the air, heavy with evil.… Yes, that was the sense of it—heavy with evil. I pulled up with a shiver. The Chairman was on his feet, waiting for the applause to cease, ready to announce the next speaker. The little steward touched him by the arm; he wheeled about and shook my hand effusively as I was introduced. "Delighted! Flattered!" he said, and shook me by the hand again. The shiver went out of me: but it took something out of me at the same time. I had a most curious feeling of depression as I found my place.… I looked about for Foe, and spotted him. They had given him a chair close under the platform, a little to my right. He had taken his seat and was scanning the platform attentively. The arc-light shone down on his face, and showed it white, bewildered, a trifle strained.… But this may have been no more than my fancy.
The Chairman asked for silence. He was a bald-headed small man of no particular points and (as Jimmy whispered) seemed to feel his position acutely. He said that, whatever their personal differences, they would all agree that Mr. Jenkinson's speech had uplifted them above ordinary politics. He had felt himself speaking not as their Chairman but as a private individual—or, in other words, as a man— uplifted into a higher plane, and he would now call upon their respected candidate, Mr. Farrell, to address the meeting.
Mr. Farrell stepped forward. I must try to tell you what Mr. Farrell looked like, because it belongs to the story.… You'll find that it becomes pretty important.
He was of medium height and carried a belly. Later on, when I came to know him, I heard him refer to it as his "figure" and say that exercise was good for it. I don't know about that: but he certainly was given exercise to reduce it, later on.… He could not have been ashamed of it either, just yet: for it was clothed in front with sealskin and festooned with two loops of gold chain.
Two or three locks of hair, cultivated to a great length and plastered by means of pomade across his cranium, concealed a certain poverty of undergrowth thereabouts; while a pair of whiskers, sandy in colour and stiff in texture, and a clean-shaven upper lip and chin, threw out a challenge that Mr. Peter Farrell could grow hair if and where he chose. His eyes bulged like gooseberries. They were colourless, and lustreless in comparison with the diamond pin in his neckcloth. His frock-coat and pepper-and-salt trousers were of superfine material and flashy cut. They fitted him like a skin in all the wrong places. Get it into your heads—Here was a prosperous reach-me-down person of the sort you will find on any political platform, standing for Parliament or seconding a vote of thanks.
He was not in the least bumptious. He began very nervously with a carefully prepared Shakespearean quotation—"'I am no orator as Brutus is,'" in compliment to Jenkinson. Then he gave me a lift. He said that my presence there was a proof, if proof were needed, of the solidarity—he would repeat the word—of the solidarity existing in the Progressive ranks. He was sure—he might even say, confident—that this graceful act on the part of the right honourable baronet (as he chose to call me) would give the lie to certain reports—hints, rather—emanating from certain quarters which called themselves newspapers. He would not soil his mouth by giving them their true name, which was Rags. "We are all solid here," announced Mr. Farrell, and was answered with applause.