"No," every man cried.
"Then it's carried," said the chairman, "unanimously. Now we must give it a name."
Upon the face of every man present dwelt a pondering expression, the general just interpretation of which would be vacuity. Half a dozen put their fingers to their brows, but not one of them had a name to propose.
The ever-ready chairman--and be it here remarked that Mr. Bartholomew was as good-humored as he was apt--rose and said:
"It ain't the lightest of matters to give a fit name to such a club as ours. I think I can suggest one."
"Bart's the cleverest chap in the country," said one of the audience. "He ought to be prime-minister."
Mr. Bartholomew resumed.
"I don't throw it in your teeth, mates; it's only a matter of reading, and I don't doubt in a year or two that some of you will know as much as me, and a good deal more. I don't throw it in your teeth, I say, that perhaps none of you ever heard the name of William Wilberforce."
They looked at each other and shook their heads.
"He wasn't a working-man, he was a gentleman with plenty of money; born a gentleman, and bred at college. But, mates, he was a man who saw things with a clear eye, and a clear heart that bled at the sight of oppression, and with a mind steadfast enough to accomplish what it was set upon. It is to William Wilberforce that we may say we owe--not only we, but all mankind--the abolition of slavery."