The manner of his speech was in its way chillingly impressive. He was still sitting in exactly the same position, one hand upon the arm of his high-backed chair, the other upon the table before him. He made use of no gestures, his face remained as white and emotionless as a carved image, his tone, though clear and low, was absolutely monotonous. But there was about him a subtle sense of repression apparent to all of them.
"On my way home that night my hansom knocked down an old man. He was not seriously hurt, and I drove him home. On the way he stared at me curiously. Every now and then he laughed—unpleasantly.
"'I have never seen any one out of your world before,' he said. 'I dare say you have never spoken to any one out of mine except to toss us alms. Come and see where I live.'
"He insisted, and I went. I found myself in a lodging-house, now pulled down and replaced by one of Lord Rowton's tenement houses. I saw a hundred human beings more or less huddled together promiscuously, and the face of every one of them was like the face of a rat. The old man dragged me from room to room, laughing all the time. He showed me children herded together without distinction of sex or clothing, here and there he pointed to a face where some apprehension of the light was fighting a losing battle with the ghouls of disease, of vice, of foul air, of filth. I was faint and giddy when we had looked over that one house, but the old man was not satisfied. He dragged me on to the roof and pointed eastwards. There, as far as the eyes could reach, was a blackened wilderness of smoke-begrimed dwellings. He looked at me and grinned. I can see him now. He had only one tooth, a blackened yellow stump, and every time he opened his mouth to laugh he was nearly choked with coughing. He leaned out over the palisading and reached with both his arms eastward. 'There,' he cried, frantically, 'you have seen one. There are thousands and tens of thousands of houses like this, a million crawling vermin who were born into the world in your likeness, as you were born, my fine gentleman. Day by day they wake in their holes, fill their lungs with foul air, their stomachs with rotten food, break their backs and their hearts over some hideous task. Every day they drop a little lower down. Drink alone keeps them alive, stirs their blood now and then so that they can feel their pulses beat, brings them a blessed stupor. And see over there the sun, God's sun, rises every morning, over them and you. Young man! You see those flaming spots of light? They are gin-palaces. You may thank your God for them, for they alone keep this horde of rotten humanity from sweeping westwards, breaking up your fine houses, emptying your wine into the street, tearing the silk and laces from your beautiful soft-limbed women. Bah! But you have read. It would be the French Revolution over again. Oh, but you are wise, you in the West, your statesmen and your philanthropists, that you build these gin-palaces, and smile, and rub your hands and build more and spend the money gaily. You build the one dam which can keep back your retribution. You keep them stupefied, you cheapen the vile liquor and hold it to their noses. So they drink, and you live. But a day of light may come.'"
Lord Arranmore ceased speaking, stretched out his hand and helped himself to wine with unfaltering fingers.
"I have tried," he continued, "to repeat the exact words which the old man used to me, and I do not find it so difficult as you might imagine, because at that time they made a great impression upon me. But I cannot, of course, hope to reproduce to you his terrible earnestness, the burning passion with which every word seemed to spring from his lips. Their effect upon me at that time you will be able to judge when I tell you this—that I never returned to my rooms, that for ten years I never set foot west of Temple Bar. I first joined a small society in Whitechapel, then I worked for myself, and finally I became a police-court missionary at Southwark Police-Court. The history of those years is the history of a slowly-growing madness. I commenced by trying to improve whole districts-I ended with the individual."
Brooks' wineglass fell with a little crash upon the tablecloth. The wine, a long silky stream, flowed away from him unstaunched, unregarded. His eyes were fixed upon Lord Arranmore. He leaned forward.
"A police-court missionary!" he cried, hoarsely.
Lord Arranmore regarded him for a moment in silence.
"Yes. As you doubtless surmise, I am your father. Afterwards you may ask me questions."