“I mean it,” he assured her. “As you know, a chairman must be elected this week, and that chairman, of course, will hold more power in his hand than any emperor of the past or any sovereign of the present. That leader is going to stop the war. He is going to bring peace to the world. It is a mighty post, Miss Abbeway.”
“It is indeed,” she agreed.
“Yet would you believe,” he went on, leaning across the table and neglecting for a moment his dinner, “would you believe, Miss Abbeway, that out of the twenty representatives chosen from the Trades Unions governing the principal industries of Great Britain, there is not a single one who does not consider himself eligible for the post.”
Catherine found herself suddenly laughing, while Fenn looked at her in astonishment.
“I cannot help it,” she apologised. “Please forgive me. Do not think that I am irreverent. It is not that at all. But for a moment the absurdity of the thing overcame me. I have met some of them, you know—Mr. Cross of Northumberland, Mr. Evans of South Wales—”
“Evans is one of the worst,” Fenn interrupted, with some excitement. “There’s a man who has only worn a collar for the last few years of his life, who evaded the board-school because he was a pitman’s lad, who doesn’t even know the names of the countries of Europe, but who still believes that he is a possible candidate. And Cross, too! Well, he washes when he comes to London, but he sleeps in his clothes and they look like it.”
“He is very eloquent,” Catherine observed.
“Eloquent!” Fenn exclaimed scornfully. “He may be, but who can understand him? He speaks in broad Northumbrian. What is needed in the leader whom they are to elect this week, Miss Abbeway, is a man of some culture and some appearance. Remember that to him is to be confided the greatest task ever given to man. A certain amount of personality he must have—personality and dignity, I should say, to uphold the position.”
“There is Mr. Miles Furley,” she said thoughtfully. “He is an educated man, is he not?”
“For that very reason unsuitable,” Fenn explained eagerly. “He represents no great body of toilers. He is, in reality, only an honorary member of the Council, like yourself and the Bishop, there on account of his outside services.”