"Why not give them some of your husband's dinner?" he replied, pointing to her basket, on the top of which lay several knives and forks. There was a titter, for she was, in truth, carrying refreshment for Mr. Green and his colleagues. She flushed scarlet.
"My husband!" she echoed. "Yes! where is the money you have stole from our husbands? But you'll find that we aren't slaves like the ones you drove in the Indies before you were kicked out! The British workpeople are not to be treated like black niggers or Chinese coolies."
"Good God! woman," cried Ned, losing patience, "if you have nothing better to say than to trump up the last scurrilous article in the Taskmaster--Here! Woods, follow on--I'm not going to be stopped."
In an instant they were the centre of a band of excited women, the next they were in the car, and the chauffeur was running back to take his seat.
"I don't want to hurt you," called Ned as he turned on power, "but if some of you don't stand back there will be an accident!"
"Cowards! Fools! Don't let him go without an answer," shrieked the woman with the basket, who was entangled two deep in the backward rush. The next moment there very nearly was an accident, since, failing of all else, the angry orator flung the first thing she could lay her hands upon--the handful of knives and forks--at the car with her full force, and one of the missiles, a three-pronged iron fork, buried itself in the fleshy part of Ned's right hand, as it held the steerer, making him and it swerve.
The fork quivered as he steadied the wheel. Then he turned and raised his hat with his other hand.
"Thank you!" he said, and the word fell on a half-awed, half-alarmed silence.
"She didn't mean to do it," began Woods hurriedly. "Shall I pull it out, my lord?"
"Of course she didn't," replied Ned coolly. "If she had meant to do it, she would have killed a baby. That sort of woman is built that way. Wait a bit, Woods, till we are through the works. I look like a blessed St. Sebastian with it quivering in my flesh!"