“That is why, Mr. Chairman, I address myself to you, because you’re an old friend and a—and a good sort.” Payne blinked at the compliment. “And I hand to you, old chum, this letter that I’ve just written out, which contains—”
The room leaned forward to listen.
“Contains my resignation.” Erb sat down.
A murmur started slowly near the Chairman and went down the table, increased its pace and its volume, and came back to Erb in the condition of an angry remonstrance. Half a dozen men rose.
“I give notice,” said Spanswick, “that at the next meeting I shall move the appointment of a new secretary.”
“At the next meeting,” said a Cannon Street man, who had never heard his own voice raised in public speech before, and seemed himself astonished by the novelty, “at the next meeting you’ll damn well do nothing of the kind.” The room roared its approval. “We don’t want a new secretary, because we ain’t a going to get rid of the old one. The position isn’t vacant. I move, Mr. Chairman, or second, or whatever you call it, that that letter what you’ve got in your hand be given back to our friend Erb, and that he be asked or invited or requested—I don’t know how you put these things—to tear it up and forget all about it; I will now conclude my few remarks by asking you to join me in a well-known song.”
“F—or he’s a jolly good faillow,
For he’s—”
The room sang the refrain with enthusiasm; the man with the broken head came, bandaged, and joined in. Spanswick, recognising that the game for the present was over, beat time.
“That’s all right, then,” said Payne, when the hurrahing stopped. “Now, let’s get on to the next business. ‘Proposed starting of a new paper to be called “The Carman.”’”