“I think so,” Macheson admitted, “but——”
“Look here,” Drayton interrupted, “you’re a man of common sense, and you know that life’s more or less a stand-up fight. Those that are licked live here in Whitechapel—if you can call it living—and those who win get to Belgravia! It’s a pitiless sort of affair this fight, but there it is. Now which of the two do you think need preaching to, these people, or the people who are responsible for them? You’ve started a mission in Whitechapel—it would have been more logical, if there’s a word of truth in your religion, to have started it in Mayfair.”
Macheson laughed.
“They wouldn’t listen to me,” he declared.
“I’d see to that,” Drayton answered quickly. “It’s my business. I want you to give a course of—well, we’d call them lectures, in the West End. You can say what you like. You can pitch into ’em as hot as Hell! I’ll guarantee you a crowded audience every time.”
“I have no interest in those people,” Macheson said. “Why should I go and lecture to them? My sympathies are all down here.”
“Exactly,” Drayton answered. “I want you to stir up the people who can really help, people who can give millions, pull down these miles of fever-tainted rat holes, endow farms here and abroad. Lash them till their conscience squeaks! See? What’s the good of preaching to these people? That won’t do any good! You want to preach to the really ignorant, the really depraved, the West-Enders!”
“Do I understand,” Macheson asked, “that you have a definite scheme in which you are inviting me to take part?”