ve had yet, I
say,--don't you think so?"

The speaker, a man called Casey, turned to the two men behind him. Both
nodded.

"Hallin's speech last year was first-rate," he continued, "but somehow
Hallin damps you down, at least he did me last year; what you want just
now is _fight_--and, my word! Mr. Wharton let 'em have it!"

And standing with his hands on his sides, he glanced round from one to
another. His own face was flushed, partly from the effects of a crowded
hall and bad air, but mostly with excitement. All the men present
indeed--though it was less evident in Bennett and Wharton than in the
rest--had the bright nervous look which belongs to leaders keenly
conscious of standing well with the led, and of having just emerged
successfully from an agitating ordeal. As they stood together they went
over the speech to which they had been listening, and the scene which
had followed it, in a running stream of talk, laughter, and gossip.
Wharton took little part, except to make a joke occasionally at his own
expense, but the pleasure on his smiling lip, and in his roving,
contented eye was not to be mistaken. The speech he had just delivered
had been first thought out as he paced the moonlit library and corridor
at Mellor. After Marcella had left him, and he was once more in his own
room, he had had the extraordinary self-control to write it out, and
make two or three machine-copies of it for the press. Neither its range
nor its logical order had suffered for that intervening experience. The
programme of labour for the next five years had never been better
presented, more boldly planned, more eloquently justified. Hallin's
presidential speech of the year before, as Casey said, rang flat in the
memory when compared with it. Wharton knew that he had made a mark, and
knew also that his speech had given him the whip-hand of some fellows
who would otherwise have stood in his way.

Casey was the first man to cease talking about the speech. He had
already betrayed himself about it more than he meant. He belonged to the
New Unionism, and affected a costume in character--fustian trousers,
flannel shirt, a full red tie and work-man's coat, all well calculated
to set off a fine lion-like head and broad shoulders. He had begun life
as a bricklayer's labourer, and was now the secretary of a recently
formed Union. His influence had been considerable, but was said to be
already on the wane; though it was thought likely that he would