"'Agitating the dregs of London', the newspapers put it," said Meredith.
"All for sixpence an hour," said Burns.
"You have the floor!" said Meredith to me.
"I told you he is not accurately described as a modest man. This is my story," I continued, "the story as I see it. London had heard of him—when was it?—in '86, or so, when he led a crowd of East Enders to Trafalgar Square where mass meetings were not permitted, and the crowd got out of hand and smashed plate-glass windows, and Burns got his head broken, or nearly so, and went to gaol."
"'Serve the brute right!' I remember the run of thoughtful British opinion," put in Meredith.
"I was not in England at the time, but I remember the verdict," I said.
"The trouble was," said Burns, "I hadn't been introduced to the authorities. There I touched a fundamental British prejudice. The affair secured me the introduction, and opened Trafalgar Square—"
"To the mob," said Meredith.
"To mass meetings," said Burns.