"Your reasons?" asked Jarratt Weekes sharply.
Mr. Churchward flushed, but was not disconcerted.
"Moses brought forth water from the rock. It would be symbolical and religious to have him in the procession. We've brought forth water from the rock. There you are—an allegory in fact."
"You couldn't have hit on a higher idea in history, schoolmaster," asserted Nathaniel Spry.
"There's no offence?" asked Mr. Norseman. "You're sure there's no offence, schoolmaster? You know what his reverence is."
"I do," answered the chairman. "And I also know what I am. I believe that, when it comes to decorum, Mr. Norseman, I am generally allowed to be facile princeps. If I am wrong I hope somebody will correct me."
Jarratt Weekes uttered a contemptuous sound into his glass as he drained it; then old Huggins spoke.
His voice was tremulous, and he evidently laboured under great suppressed excitement.
"I do beg and pray of the committee as you'll let me be Moses, souls! I'm old enough—up home fourscore to a week—just the man's age when he denied and defied King Pharaoh. An' my beard's a regular Moses beard; an' I'm accounted wise to the eye, so long as I keep my mouth shut. 'Twould be the first and last act of note that ever I should do, an' a very fine thing to be handed down in my favour for my grandchildren to remember."
There was an awkward silence. Mr. Prout and the schoolmaster whispered aside, Mr. Norseman and Mr. Taverner shook their heads.