rch
Department, of which I have the hollow honour to be Perpetual Grand,
the real moving spirit being Mrs. Sidney Webb. A large number of
innocent young men and women are attracted to this body by promises
of employment by the said Mrs. S.W. in works of unlimited and
inspiring uplift, such as are unceasingly denounced, along with
Marconi and other matters, in your well-written organ.

Well, Mrs. Sidney Webb summoned all these young things to an
uplifting At Home at the Fabian office lately. They came in crowds
and sat at her feet whilst she prophesied unto them, with occasional
comic relief from the unfortunate Perpetual Grand. At the decent hour
of ten o'clock, she bade them good night and withdrew to her own
residence and to bed. For some accidental reason or other I lingered
until, as I thought, all the young things had gone home. I should
explain that I was in the two pair back. At last I started to go home
myself. As I descended the stairs I was stunned by the most infernal
din I have ever heard, even at the front, coming from the Fabian
Hall, which would otherwise be the back yard. On rushing to this
temple I found the young enthusiasts sprawling over tables, over
radiators, over everything except chairs, in a state of scandalous
abandonment, roaring at the tops of their voices and in a quite
unintelligible manner a string of presumably obscene songs,
accompanied on the piano with frantic gestures and astonishing
musical skill by a man whom I had always regarded as a respectable
Fabian Researcher, but who now turned out to be a Demon Pianist
out-Heroding (my secretary put in two rs, and explains that she was
thinking of Harrods) Svengali. A horribly sacrilegious character was
given to the proceedings by the fact that the tune they were singing
when I entered was Luther's hymn _Eine Feste Burg ist Unser Gott_. As
they went on (for I regret to say that my presence exercised no
restraint whatever) they sang their extraordinary and
incomprehensible litany to every tune, however august its
associations, which happened to fit it. These, if you please, are the
solemn and sour neophytes whose puritanical influence has kept you in
dread for so many years.

But I have not told you the worst. Before I fled from the building
I did at last discover what words it was they were singing. When it
first flashed on me, I