te screams and yells
interrupted the torrent of his invective; he raised both hands above
his head and clenched them in a gesture of frantic passion; his visage
was frightfully distorted, and in a few minutes there actually fell
drops of blood from his bitten lip. Rent!--it was a subject on which
the poor fellow could speak to some purpose. What was the root of the
difficulty a London workman found in making both ends meet? Wasn't it
that accursed law by which the owner of property can make him pay a
half, and often more, of his earnings or permission to put his wife and
children under a roof? And what sort of dwellings were they, these in
which the men who made the wealth of the country were born and lived
and died? What would happen to the landlords of Clerkenwell if they got
their due? Ay, what _shall_ happen, my boys, and that before so very
long? For fifteen or twenty minutes John expended his fury, until, in
fact, he was speechless. It was terrible to look at him when at length
he made his way out of the crowd; his face was livid, his eyes
bloodshot, a red slaver covered his lips and beard; you might have
taken him for a drunken man, so feebly did his limbs support him, so
shattered was he by the fit through which he had passed.

Joseph followed him, and presently walked along at his side.

'That was about as good a speech as I've heard for a long time, Mr.
Hewett,' he began by observing. 'I like to hear a man speak as if he
meant it.'

John looked up with a leaden, rheumy eye, but the compliment pleased
him, and in a moment he smiled vacantly.

'I haven't said my last word yet,' he replied, with difficulty making
himself audible through his hoarseness.

'It takes it out of you, I'm afraid. Suppose we have a drop of
something at the corner here?'

'I don't mind, Mr. Snowdon. I thought of looking in at my club for a
quarter of an hour; perhaps you'd come round with me afterwards?'

They drank at the public-house, then Hewett led the way by back streets
to the quarters of the club of which he had been for many years a
member. The locality was not cheerful, and the house itself stood in
much need of repair. As they entered, John requested his companion to
sign his name in the visitors' book; Mr. Snowdon did so with a
flourish. They ascended to the first floor and passed into a room where
little could be seen but the gas-jets, and those dimly, owing to the
fume of pipes. The rattle of bones, the strumming of a