It passed first reading; but the question was: would the Jews vote for the second reading? Reluctant enough the Jewish members, but there were rumours that the Jewish electorate were instructing their representatives to repent and vote for.
And now spread far the League of Resistance, so did the Adair Street Society, its secret daughter, of which Admiral Donald (O'Hara) had now been elected Honorary Vice-Master, and whose Roll contained the names of an extraordinary number of Territorial officers.
The Society was busy: had building four yachts, all models of the Admiral's yacht attached to the Mahomet, which was called the Mahomet II; every dusk companies of 25 to 40 men drilled darkly in the back yard at Adair Street, some of them Territorial officers: in rotation they came, they drilled, over 1000; a top room piled with revolvers, swords, bowie-knives...
For the land-magnates laughed at the notion of submitting to the Bill: rather, said they, “rivers of blood”. The mention by Hogarth of Ridley and Latimer they considered irrelevant; their fathers' heroic mood was a detail: not an entail.
In secret they met. Anarchists of the reddest hue.
One night when the Bill was approaching second-reading Frankl introduced Harris as a member; and wide-eyed stood Harris, though still cynical, with elegant walking-stick, hat cocked, and “I sye”, he whispered, “are all these real, living lords?”
“Large as life”, answered Frankl.
“Strike me dotty! The Lord said unto my lord, sit thou at my right hand”...the reason of this introduction of Harris being a relation which had arisen between the Army and the Lord Regent, who had been taking a startling interest in this branch of the services, had visited Aldershot, and held five reviews, flattering the soldier by private notice, shifting officers. By an Order in Council of the 3rd March, a reorganization was effected in the Army Board and Consultative Council, of the new men the Adjutant-General being General Sir Merrick Parr, uncle of Admiral Parr of the sea-fort Shakespeare, while the Commander-in-Chief and Inspector-General were the direct creations of the Regent, and the whole Headquarters Staff bound to follow him through thick and thin; and that “second reading” was near, which, if the Jews would vote against, well and good for Adair Street, but, if not, there remained either (1) the prompt execution of O'Hara's scheme without waiting for the four yachts, copies of the Mahomet II, which were slow in building; or (2) the knife of Harris.
But, as to (1), when three delegates from the Society had waited upon O'Hara in the Mahomet to urge immediate action, O'Hara had replied: “No, my lords, I cannot enter into this undertaking until preparations are complete, since the troops we send would never be allowed to land on the forts, if they arrived in ships not apparently our own. Your lordships cannot be more anxious than I to rid the earth of a devouring lion like Richard Hogarth, I do assure you; but, tut, is there nothing else meanwhile? Just let me introduce to your lordships a little young man whom I know”—he had summoned Harris.
But when the three delegates had gone, he had struck his brow, exclaiming: “Wretch that I am!—that great and good fellow, the fairest of the sons of men!...what a black depravity must be in this heart—” he had underlooked in the mirror, and cut a face; “but ah, Hogarth! this heart is in your net; and I loved the mother, too”....