was,
without quarrels and misunderstandings to make it worse.

CHAPTER XL.

A long street of warehouses--and at the end of it the horses slackened.

'I saw the president of the club yesterday,' said Flaxman, looking out.
'He is an old friend of mine--a most intelligent fanatic--met him on
a Madison House Fund committee last winter. He promised we should be
looked after. But we shall only get back seats, and you'll have to put
up with the smoking. They don't want ladies, and we shall only be there
on sufferance.'

The carriage stopped. Mr. Flaxman guided his charges with some
difficulty through the crowd about the steps, who inspected them and
their vehicle with a frank and not over-friendly curiosity. At the
door they found a man who had been sent to look for them, and were
immediately taken possession of. He ushered them into the back of a
large bare hall, glaringly lit, lined with white brick, and hung at
intervals with political portraits and a few cheap engravings of famous
men, Jesus of Nazareth taking his turn with Buddha, Socrates, Moses,
Shakespeare, and Paul of Tarsus.

'Can't put you any forrarder, I'm afraid,' said their guide, with a
shrug of the shoulders. 'The committee don't like strangers coming,
and Mr. Collett, he got hauled over the coals for letting you in this
evening.'

It, was a new position for Lady Charlotte to be anywhere on sufferance.
However, in the presence of three hundred smoking men, who might all
of them be political assassins in disguise for anything she knew, she
accepted her fate with meekness; and she and Rose settled themselves
into their back seat under a rough sort of gallery, glad of their veils,
and nearly blinded with the smoke.

The hall was nearly full, and Mr. Flaxman looked curiously round upon
its occupants. The majority of them were clearly artisans--a spare,
stooping sharp-featured race. Here and there were a knot of stalwart
dock-laborers, strongly marked out in physique from the watchmakers
and the potters, or an occasional seaman out of work, ship-steward,
boatswain, or what not, generally bronzed, quick-eyed, and comely, save
where the film of excess had already deadened color and expression.
Almost everyone had a pot of beer before him, standing on long wooden
flaps attached to the benches. The room was full of noise, coming
apparently from the further end, where some political bravo seemed to be
provoking his neighbors. In their own vicinity the men