“Haven’t kept you waiting I hope, Barnes?” The white-haired Labour member bustling out was conspicuous by reason of his bowler hat. “Rather a lot of things to do one way and another. When you get here you’ll find—I can’t see him now,” answering a messenger. “Tell him I’m going down to Bermondsey to put something straight that has got crooked, and I shall not be back till ten. Tell him that!”
“Cab or ’bus?” inquired Erb, as they went down the broad steps.
“’Bus,” said the Labour member, promptly. “Somebody might see us if we took a hansom. You’ll find that you can’t be too careful. And there’s another thing, too. Flower in your coat, you know—”
With axiom and words of counsel, the white-haired member shortened the journey from Westminster to the rooms in Grange Road; Erb listening with a proper deference, and refraining from all but appropriate and well-chosen interruptions. The member appeared stimulated by the task before him, and Erb felt quite mature in remembering the time when he, too, would have found his blood run quicker at the prospect of argument. His companion hurried up the corkscrew staircase of the coffee-house, Erb following slowly, nodding to a few of the men who, with anxious expression of countenance stood about on the landing. He went into a room at the side, where he hoped to be alone. Spanswick, however, had seen him, and Spanswick, following in, took a wooden chair on the opposite side of the table. But Erb’s old van boy interposed, big with a message. The chief had sent him (said William Henry) to mention in confidence that, if Erb cared to come back to his former position—“Extraordinary thing,” said Erb, “how much the world wants you when you show that you don’t want the world. No answer, William Henry, only thanks.”
“I’ve been telling a lot of ’em,” said Spanswick, jerking his hand in the direction of the other room as the young diplomatist went, “that if they take my advice, Erb, they’ll ask you to come back.”
“I see!”
“I’ve pointed out to ’em that they’ve blundered all along. That matter of the cheque, for instance—it’s proved that it’s never been cashed and, therefore, as I say, the money could never have come into your pocket. On the top of that,” said Spanswick, with something like indignation, “they go and select a bounder like old Doubleday. Why I could see what the man was like from the very start. I took his measure the first time I came across him. A talkative, interfering, muddle-headed gas-bag—I told some of ’em that it was a wonder they got men to take the trouble to lead them at all.”
“It is a wonder!”
“And here they are now,” said Spanswick, rising to go and join in the deliberations of the next room, “here they are now down on their ’ands and knees without a single penny in the cash-box, worse off than they’ve ever been ever since the Society started, and not one amongst ’em capable of taking what you may call the reins of government in hand. It all comes,” concluded Spanswick, tapping at his nose with his forefinger, “it all comes through people not listening to the advice of the few of us,” here he struck his waistcoat impressively, “the few of us, either me and you, that know.”
Through the partition Erb could hear the voice of the Labour member. Impossible to distinguish the words, but clearly there was reproof in the tones at first; this gave place later to the quieter key of counsel. The men who had hitherto been silent began to applaud; fists struck the table with approval, and presently there came the sound of emphatic cheering that had often made Erb warm with pleasure.