“I find ’em in boots,” went on the man, “but do I ever ’ave a chance of seeing the kids ’cept Sunday?” A murmur of anticipatory agreement with the coming answer went round. “My youngest is about a year old, and takes notice in a manner that’s simply wonderful—my wife says so, everybody says so, but he forgets me from one Sunday to another, and screams like anything when he catches sight of me.”
“P’raps you smile at him, old man?”
“And that’s why I agree,” concluded the Great Western man earnestly, “that some’ing ought to be done. Has anybody got ’alf a pipe of ’bacca to spare?”
“What we want,” remarked the North Western man, “is a chap that’ll persuade us to—”
“Yes, but—after you with the metch, old sort—but where is he?”
Erb closed the black shiny bag which his sister Louisa had packed and stood out in the gangway between the pews. He held his peaked cap in his hand, and fingered at the brass buttons of his waistcoat.
“I’ve took the liberty of listening,” he said, speaking slowly, “to the remarks you chaps have been making, and if there’s two minutes to spare, I should like to offer my views. I sha’n’t take more’n two minutes.”
“Fire away,” said the others, leaning out of their pews.
“Let me first of all preface my observations by telling you what we have done only this morning at my place. We have simply—” Erb described the procedure; the men listened interestedly. “And now let me tell you, friends, what we propose to do when this round robin of ours gets the usual sort of answer. We shall fix on a certain morning—this is in confidence, mind. We shall resolve upon a certain, definite, and final course of action. Then it’ll be war, and we shall find out who’s master.”
“And s’posing they are?”