"There will be a crowd," she remarked, contentedly. In a side room, I could see Millwood in his blue reefer suit chatting with a young woman who seemed about twice his height.
The ball room was, on one side, of irregular shape, and I managed to discover a corner, where, from a gilded chair I could watch without being seen. A small raised platform had been fixed; the windows looked out on the Park and Government offices. About me, as the room filled and the rows of chairs became occupied, the talk was of the war and its progress, or the need for its progress. One could not help observing, once more, that the appetite for rumours, fresh and seasonable and tasty, was as keen in the west as in the south-east of London.
The Chairman entered escorting H.R.H. (she was the tall young woman with whom I had seen Millwood chatting). We stood up. H.R.H. placed her bouquet of flowers on the table where there stood a silver tray, and a glass jug (that I should have liked to buy) and tumblers. A well-known actor-manager, a notable Judge, and Millwood followed. The audience sat down, made itself comfortable, and assumed the look of calm resignation that is appropriate when a flood of talk has to be expected. The Chairman opened with compliments to H.R.H. and, declaring that the speakers of the afternoon would save him the trouble of explaining the proposals of the new Association, went on to describe these in full detail. At the end of twenty minutes, he called upon the Judge. The Judge said the Chairman had given all the information that was necessary, and his own talk would therefore be simple and brief; he took twenty-five minutes to repeat, in slightly varied words, the speech of the Chairman. When the actor-manager advanced to the edge of the small platform, we all bent forward eagerly and hopefully; it seemed likely that here would be something to break the steady and persistent dulness. The actor-manager, with fine declamation and admirable gesture, started with an epigram that missed fire; my own view was that, by an oversight, he offered it upside down, and thus robbed it of pungency. Discouraged by this (and by the circumstance that he could not make out his notes excepting by the aid of spectacles, which he had decided not to wear) the actor-manager contented himself by echoing the statements and arguments already made.
"As you, my lord, have so truly remarked, and as my learned friend, if I may so call him, has so admirably suggested—"
I glanced about to discover a chance of getting away; an elderly lady of great proportions in the next chair, was now well asleep, and to arouse her would have produced a commotion.
"Your Royal Highness," announced the Chairman. "I call upon Mr. Millwood."
My brother-in-law came forward, one hand in the pocket of his jacket. He gave a rather awkward bow to H.R.H., nodded to the Chairman.
"This is a deuce and all of a rummy affair!" he said. The sentence seemed to box the ears of the jaded audience; everybody became alert; the stout old lady next to me woke up. "When you come to think it over, I mean. Before August, nineteen fourteen, you ladies and gentlemen knew nothing about me and cared less, and what I thought of you isn't worth mentioning. And here we are to-day, all friends. All chums. All brothers and sisters. All regarding one another with a real and vurry sincere affection. And why is it? Why, because we've been attacked, without any warning, by a bully that wants to murder our men, women and children, and whose aim it is to wipe us off the face of the earth." Millwood jerked around suddenly, and spoke with deliberation. "He ain't a-going to be allowed to do it!" The cheering came for the first time; loud cheering, and long. "Out there, just now, on the 'Orse Guards Parade, I spoke to a young chap who was going forward to the tent where they're jotting down the names of recruits. He appeared not much more than a boy, and I took the liberty of speaking to him. I says, 'My lad, what induces you to leave your good mother, and go and join the army?' And he says, 'It's just because I've got a good mother, that I'm going to fight on her behalf,' he says."
It is impossible for me to describe the way in which Millwood gripped and held those people. Set down in writing, there would appear to be little in his homely anecdotes, his ordinary illustrations, his touches of domestic pathos. What I do assure you is that at one moment the folk were laughing, and at the next they were in tears; the great virtue of the speech seemed to me that it finished within ten minutes, and I joined with the rest in making the ineffectual appeal of "Go on!" Once or twice he had made adventures into the alliterative manner, and these were his only errors. In the room downstairs where the visitors took tea and coffee, and I had the opportunity of inspecting furniture, everyone was asking for Mr. Millwood. The lady of the house regretted he had somehow taken his departure, unobserved by her.
That evening, when Millwood returned to London Street, I asked how he had got on at the afternoon meeting.