“But I am reminded,” shouted the scarlet-faced man on the chair, still keeping his voice to the high note on which he had started, “I am reminded that my time is exhausted. Another talented speaker is ’ere to address you. I refer to our friend Barnes—better known per’aps to all of you as Erb.”
The crescent-shaped crowd, growling applause, gave signs of movement, and a round-faced young man, standing at the side of the chair, looked up modestly at the sky.
“He, as you all know, ’ails from the district of Berminsey, where he exercises a certain amount of influence, and, in spite of his youth, is recognised as a positive power in the labour world. He is accustomed to hit straight from the shoulder, and he fears neether friend nor foe. I am going to tell you some’ing you very like don’t know, and there’s no necessity for it to go any further; that is that he stands a vurry good chance of being made the secretary of a new society. Friends! without further remarks from me, I call upon Comrade Barnes, better known as Erb, to address you. Thanks.”
The man stepped down from the chair. “Where’s my hat been and gone?” he asked. “Someone’s shifted it.”
The hour being half past twelve, the crowd had no business of an urgent nature for thirty minutes. A few strolled away to join other groups, and Herbert Barnes, as he took off his bowler hat and stepped upon the green chair, watched these sternly. Southwark Park was being wooed by the morning sun of spring-time, the green fresh grass covered a space that was here and there protected by warning boards; the trees, after a shivering winter, were clothing themselves with a suit of new leaves. Away to the right, masts of shipping in the Surrey Commercial Docks showed high and gaunt above the middle-aged trees that fringed the park: on the other side rows of small houses pressed closely. A few light-haired Scandinavian sailors looked on amiably; timber-carrying men, who showed a horny skin at the back of their necks, as badges of their labour, made up, with railway men in unaccustomed mufti, the rest of the group. The new speaker’s features relaxed slightly as he saw two girls, conspicuous in the presence of so many men, join his audience, to resume his earlier manner when one exclaimed disappointedly, “Oh, it’s only joring!” and both strolled away towards a bed of flaming tulips. A tall young woman, slightly lame, took their place.
“Friends,” said Erb, very quietly, “I was not altogether prepared to be called upon for an address this morning, but—All right, my lad,” this in reply to an appeal from the outside of the crescent, “I’ll speak up presently. I’ll speak up when I’m ready, in a way that’ll make even you understand me.” The line of speakers near the chair smiled, and the interjector’s friends remarked gleefully that this was one in the eye for him. “I say that I came ’ere to this park this morning,” he went on, raising his voice defiantly, and smoothing his obstinate hair with one hand, “more as a listener than a teacher, more ready to learn from others than to learn them anything myself.” The tall young person on the edge of the crowd winced. “But as I have been called upon, I shall take the liberty of askin’ you one or two very straight questions. My friend from Camberwell, who preceded, referred to me as one accustomed to hit straight from the shoulder; that’s the way I’m going to play the game this morning. I stand up ’ere,” he said, commencing to finger the buttons of his waistcoat, “as a working man addressing his fellow working men. Prouder titles there can never be, and if they was to offer to make me Lord Mayor of London at this present moment I should make answer to the effect that I preferred to be a working man.” A voice on the outside asked where he worked? “I am a parcels carman on a railway I am, and I earn twenty-three shillings and sixpence a week.” A voice said it was a shame to pay a van-boy the money earned by grown men; Herbert Barnes flushed at this and went on. The voice, deluded, threw at him another remark. “Was he” (asked the voice), “was he a half-timer?”
“I’m going to spare one minute with this chap,” said Erb, turning suddenly. “Bring him forward! Stand back from him then, if he’s too shy for that, and let’s see who we’re dealing with. Oh, it’s you, is it?”
“Yus,” admitted the owner of the voice resentfully, “it is me.”
“You don’t look ’appy,” said Erb.
“I’ve been listening to you,” explained the man.