ed man in a soft hat.

'That's 'im!'

'Yes. Lothian Scott!'

Small need for the chairwoman to introduce the grey man with the
northern burr in his speech, and the northern turn for the
uncompromising in opinion. Every soul there save the two 'educated'
ladies knew this was the man who had done more to make the Labour Party
a political force to be reckoned with than any other creature in the
three kingdoms. Whether he was conscious of having friends in a
gathering largely Tory (as lower-class crowds still are), certainly he
did not spare his enemies.

During the first few minutes of a speech full of Socialism, Mrs.
Fox-Moore (stirred to unheard-of expressiveness) kept up a low, running
comment--

'Oh, of _course_! He says that to curry favour with the mob--a rank
demagogue, this man! Such pandering to the populace!' Then, turning
sharply to her companion, '_He wants votes!_' she said, as though
detecting in him a taste unknown among the men in her purer circle. 'Oh,
no doubt he makes a very good thing out of it! Going about filling the
people's heads with revolutionary ideas! Monstrous wickedness, _I_ call
it, stirring up class against class! I begin to wonder what the police
are thinking about.' She looked round uneasily.

The excitement had certainly increased as the little grey politician
denounced the witlessness of the working-class, and when they howled at
him, went on to expound a trenchant doctrine of universal
Responsibility, which preceded the universal Suffrage that was to come.
Much of what he said was drowned in uproar. It had become clear that his
opinions revolted the majority of his hearers even more than they did
the two ladies. So outraged were the sensibilities of the hooligan and
the half-drunk that they drowned as much of the speech as they were able
in cat-calls and jeers. But enough still penetrated to ears polite not
only to horrify, but to astonish them--such force has the spoken word
above even its exaggeration in cold print.

The ladies had read--sparingly, it is true--that these things were said,
but to _hear_ them!

'He doesn't, after all, seem to be saying what the mob wants to hear,'
said the younger woman.

'No; mercifully the heart of the country is still sound!'

But for one of these two out of the orderlier world, the opposition that
the 'rank demagogue' roused in the mob was to light a lamp whereby she
read wondering the signs of an unsuspected bond between Janet Fox-Moore