“You’re wanted, old man,” said Payne, opening the door importantly. “Foller me into the next room, will you?”
The old scent of gas and cheap tobacco and corduroys. The old faces looking round as he entered, elbows resting on the table, some of the men with tumblers before them, others, wearing the stern look of sobriety, had been making notes of the speech to which they had just listened. Circular stains on the long wooden T-shaped tables; the impaled advertisements on the wall awry as though affected by the perfumes coming up from the bar downstairs. The dulled mirrors at the end reflected the room mistily with its frame protected eternally by tissue paper. The barman waiting for orders at the doorway gave Erb a tap of encouragement as he went in.
“Bravo! vo! vo! vo!” murmured the room.
“Order! order!” said the Chairman. “I call on our old and trusted friend—I forget his blessed name—from Paddington Parcels, at any rate, to address the meeting.”
The Paddington Parcels member cleared his throat and rose. He had been one of the first to go over, and this he frankly admitted. “Gives me all the more title,” said Paddington Parcels determinedly, “to undertake what I’m undertaking of now.”
Paddington Parcels handsomely offered to cut a long story short, and the room gave encouragement to this proposal, whereupon he proceeded to speak at intolerable length with ever, “Just one word and I’ve done,” and “Let me add a couple of words more,” and “Finally, I should like to remark,” and other phrases all suggesting an immediate finish, anticipation not justified by results.
Summarised, the argument was that the society had made a grievous blunder; that when a chap made a mistake he should apologise for it and set it right; that a society was like a chap, and should behave as a chap would, and that in the present deplorable state of the society there was only one thing they could do, namely, to ask Erb Barnes to let byegones be byegones, and to come back and resume the secretaryship. When, after many feints of sitting down, thus arousing the oratorical desires of those anxious to second the resolution, and always thinking of more words that retained him in a standing position, Paddington Parcels did unexpectedly resume his seat, there was great competition for the honour of speaking next, and twenty faces looked gloomy and disappointed when Payne was selected. Payne spoke briefly. Every society had its ups and downs: this society was just now all in the downs, as the song had it. But it was well worth while to have such an experience, if only to see his old chum, his good old chum Erb, righted in the eyes of everybody and restored to a position that he ought never to have quitted.
The Labour member begged leave (his tones intimating nothing of humility) to say a few words before this was put to the vote. The society had been compared to a man, but the society, as a society, was, so to speak, a mere child, and it had recently behaved in the impulsive wrong-headed manner of a child. That might be overlooked once; it would not be overlooked a second time. Mind that! Brains had been served out to one and all, but some hadn’t quite got their proper share with the result that others had more than the average supply, and if the man who had come out rather short in the matter had not sufficient sense, when in a position of difficulty, to ask advice from those fully equipped, why the men with the short supply would have to put up with the consequences of their own blundering. And there was another thing. The success of the labour movement as a whole depended on the loyalty of the men to those who were doing brain work on their behalf; let that loyalty once exhibit anything of doubt and the whole scheme, the whole business, the whole movement—the Labour member struck the wooden table emphatically at each variant of the phrase—the whole show would go to pot. All the same, he congratulated them on the wise decision at which they were about to arrive, and he strongly urged his friend Erb Barnes, “in consideration of certain prospective events,” said the white-haired member, lowering his voice mysteriously, “of which he is aware, but cannot at the present time be made public,” to accept good-temperedly the invitation of the men.
The men had kept silent whilst receiving criticism; at these last words they rose from the Windsor chairs and shouted approval. The shirt sleeved waiter went up and down the tables, culling empty glasses and making them into a bouquet. Erb went to the mantelpiece, and resting one hand there, spoke quietly. Every face turned in his direction. “I think,” said the Chairman importantly, “I think I may say carried per se—I mean nem. con.”
“I’m not going to occupy your time for long,” said Erb from the fireplace when the renewed cheering had ceased. “You’ll have other business to do—(No, no)—and, contrary to my usual practice I’m going to be very brief indeed. There have been times when you’ve heard me speak at a considerable length, and for all your kindness to me under those circumstances I give you my thanks. I shan’t ever trouble you again to that extent. A month or so ago you met here—you, just the same men that you are now—and you gave me the sack. You never gave me a chance of defending myself or explaining my actions; you just pushed me off.”