“Trust me,” said Sargon bravely. “Keep with me.”
The young man struggled with some complex question. But now three fresh individuals came under the magic attraction of the call and the young man’s question fell in unheeded chunks. These new adherents were a little group of men standing at the kerb, about a small, almost inaudible hurdy-gurdy on which was a placard stating: “We want Work not Charity; but there is no Work for Us in this So-called Civilized State.” They were clad in faded khaki, and were all youths of less than five-and-twenty.
“Now look at that!” said Sargon. “Is it not time the new age began?”
He addressed himself to the man on the right of the organ-grinder.
“All this is to be altered here and now,” he said. “I have work for you to do.”
“Oh!” said the ex-soldier in the accent of a fairly well-educated man. “What sort of work?”
“We’re straight,” said the organ-grinder. “We’ll take it. If it’s work we can do. We ain’t fakers. Wot work is it?”
“Shillin’ an hour?” said the third.
“More than that. Much more than that. And very great and responsible work. A harvest! A splendid harvest! You shall be leaders of men. Follow after me.”
“Far?” asked the man who had spoken first.