Murmurs of approval and a little laughter from the audience, with here and there a sotto-voce remark: "Bartholomew knows what he's about."
"Now," pursued Mr. Bartholomew, "that's what I call constitutional. I don't mean to say that I ain't open to conviction myself; but when a man knows he's right, all that he's got to do is to go ahead--always in a constitutional way. Now there's the government--it's right, or it's wrong. If it's right, let it remain as it is; if it's wrong, it's got to be altered."
"It's wrong, that's what it is," blurted out a working-man.
"Not so fast, not so fast," said Mr. Bartholomew; "saying it's wrong don't make it so. We've got to find it out by argument and open minds, constitutionally, and that ain't a thing for to-night; and it ain't a thing that can be settled in a day, or a week, or a month, or a year. It'll take time, because--I don't mind confessing to you my opinion--that what's got to be done is no trifling matter; it's a mighty matter, mates, with kings and queens, and princes and princesses, and prime-ministers and chancellors of the exchequer, all mixed up in it. Do you know what I call those ladies and gentlemen, mates? I call them the frillings. The solid mass, the real body, is here." He gave the table a great thump with his fist.
"Bravo, Bartholomew!" from many voices. "We've got a man at the head of us!"
The excitement was beginning to rise.
"You ain't got anybody at the head of you. All that sort of thing--forming ourselves into an institution, election of officers, and so on--has got to be done. We're just now having a little friendly chat before dinner. Yes, mates, we are the solid body of the country, and it has struck me for a long time past that the time has come for us to make ourselves known and heard. I won't quite say that it's a matter of mathematics, but it is a matter of numbers. Every man has two arms and two legs--except those that's got wooden ones--a head to think, and often think wrongly, mind you, a heart to love, and a stomach to fill, which, if you don't fill, plays the very devil with you. There's something in Coriolanus--"
"Where's that?" cried one, interrupting the other.
"'Where's that,' Bill?" echoed Mr. Bartholomew. "It ain't a 'where' at all; it's a who. Coriolanus was a great general; and when the institution is formed, which we have met to-night to form, I hope you'll read about him in William Shakespeare; for what we're going to have in that institution, besides other things that's got to be settled, is books, mates."
"Hear, hear."