“Something can be made out of that,” said Welsh. “We are in want of a grievance. Tell me the particulars, I’ll sift out for myself what will serve my purpose.”
When he had heard all, “It will do,” said he, “there has been nothing to interest the public or stir them up since the last divorce suit in high life. High life!—so high that some folks had to hold their noses. We want a bit of a change now. After that bit of strong venison, some capsicum to restore the palate. Saltren, you must convene a public meeting, make a demonstration, a torchlight procession of the out-of-work, issue a remonstrance. I’ll come and help you. I know how to work those kind of things. A little grievance and some dissatisfaction well-stirred together is like chlorate of potash and sulphur in a mortar, only stir away, and in the end you get an explosion.”
“It is of no use,” said the captain, in a tone of discouragement.
“Of no use! I tell you it is of the utmost use; we’ll make a public matter of it. Get a question asked in the House about it. There are so many journalists in there now that we can get anything asked when we want the question as a text for a leader. Why, we will fill the papers with your grievance, only we must have some meeting to report, and I’ll help you with that. Bless you, I’ve half a dozen ways of poking this matter into notoriety; and we will show up the British aristocracy as the oppressors of the poor, those who are driving business out of the country, who are the true cause of the prevailing depression. Thanks to that recent divorce case we’ve made them out to be the moral cancer in the body of old England, and now we shall show that they are the drag on commercial progress. When folks are grumbling because the times are bad, it makes them mighty content to be shown a cause for it all, on which they may vent their ill-humour. Did you ever read ‘The Curiosity Shop,’ Saltren? Quilp had a figure-head to batter whenever things went wrong with him, and the public are much like Quilp; give ’em an admiral or a peer, or an archbishop, some figure-head, and whack, bang, hammer, and smash they go at it.”
“As for the aristocracy,” said Mrs. Saltren, “I ought to know them. I combed their hair, and hooked their dresses, and unpacked their portmanteaus; and them as do that are best qualified to know them, I should think.”
“I don’t mind telling you,” said the captain, addressing his brother-in-law, “that their doom is sealed in heaven. I’ve had it revealed to me.”
“You have, have you?” asked Welsh in a tone of irony, which, however, Saltren did not perceive.
“Yes, I have—you shall hear. I would not tell every one, but I tell you. I was in the spirit this very morning, and I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Saltren, Saltren! Then I looked, and behold there came flying down to me, a book from heaven, written within and without. I held up my hands to receive it; but it fell past me into the water, and I stooped and looked thereon, and saw written ‘The Gilded Clique,’ and again the voice cried, ‘It is fallen, it is fallen!’”
“You don’t expect me to gulp that——” Welsh checked himself, and added, shaking his head—“I can’t, I’m afraid, make copy of that.”
“It is true,” said Saltren earnestly. His vehemence, his kindled eyes, his deepened colour, showed his sincerity. “Would I dare in such matters to utter lies? I am but a poor mean instrument, but what of that? Prophets have been found among shepherds, and apostles taken from their fishing nets. I was engaged in heartfelt prayer when this took place.”