r 'Hedley,
the mad tailor.' Sometimes one and sometimes the other. It don't matter
which. There's truth in, it. I am a bit mad. You, Mr. Brott, were one
of those who understood me a little. I have brooded a good deal perhaps,
and things have got muddled up in my brain. You know what has been at
the bottom of it all.

"I began making speeches when I was a boy. People laughed at me, but
I've set many a one a-thinking. I'm no anarchist, although people call
me one. I'll admit that I admire the men who set the French Revolution
going. If such a thing happened in this country I'd be one of the first
to join in. But I've never had a taste for bloodshed. I'd rather the
thing had been done without. From the first you seemed to be the man who
might have brought it about. We listened to you, we watched your career,
and we began to have hopes. Mr. Brott, the bodies and souls of millions
of your fellow-creatures were in the hollow of your hand. It was you
who might have set them free. It was you who might have made this the
greatest, the freest, the happiest country in the world. Not so much for
us perhaps as for our children, and our children's children. We didn't
expect a huge social upheaval in a week, or even a decade of years. But
we did expect to see the first blow struck. Oh, yes, we expected that."

"I have disappointed you, I know, you and many others," Brott said
bitterly. "I wish I could explain. But I can't!"

"Oh, it doesn't matter," the man answered. "You have broken the hearts
of thousands of suffering men and women--you who might have led them
into the light, have forged another bolt in the bars which stand between
them and liberty. So they must live on in the darkness, dull, dumb
creatures with just spirit enough to spit and curse at the sound of your
name. It was the greatest trust God ever placed in one man's hand--and
you--you abused it. They were afraid of you--the aristocrats, and they
bought you. Oh, we are not blind up there--there are newspapers in our
public houses, and now and then one can afford a half-penny. We have
read of you at their parties and their dances. Quite one of them you
have become, haven't you? But, Mr. Brott, have you never been afraid?
Have you never said to yourself, there is justice in the earth? Suppose
it finds me out?"

"Hedley, you are talking rubbish," Brott said. "Up here you would see
things with different eyes. Letheringham is pledged."

"If any man ever earned hell," Hed