Braunt and Marsten passed from the dimness of Rose Garden Court into the brilliancy of Light Street, which on certain nights in the week was like one prolonged fair, each side being lined with heaped-up coster’s barrows, radiant with flaring gasoline. Incense was being burned—evil-smelling incense—to the God of Cheapness. Hordes of women, down at the heel, were bargaining with equally impecunious venders—meeting and chaffering on the common level of poverty.

Turning into a side street and then into a narrower lane, the two men came to a huge building where the Salvation Army held its services—a building let temporarily to the employees of Monkton & Hope for the discussion of their grievances. The place was crowded to the doors, and the latest comers had some difficulty in making their way along one side of the walls, nearer the front platform, where they at last found room half way between the doors and the speakers.

Scimmins was in the chair, looking very uneasy and out of place, not knowing exactly what was expected of him, smiling a wan deprecatory smile occasionally as some of his pals in the crowd made audible remarks about his elevation, and the native dignity he brought to bear on his office. One gave it as his opinion (“if you awsked him”) that Scimmins would have looked more natural with a pint pot in his right hand, instead of the mallet with which he was supposed to keep order.

On a row of chairs at the back of the platform sat the members of the committee, looking, most of them, quite as uncomfortable as the chairman. Several reporters were writing at a table provided for them. Sometimes one whispered a question to the chairman or a member of the committee, and received the almost invariable answer, “Blest if I know, arsk Gibbons.”

Gibbons was quite palpably the man of the hour. He was on his feet by virtue of his position as chairman of the committee and secretary to the Union, and was just finishing the reading of the committee’s report as Braunt and Marsten found standing-room at the side of the hall.

“—And finally your committee begs leave to report that Mr. Sartwell, having rejected all overtures from your committee, refusing to confer with it either through its chairman, or as a body, it was resolved that this report be drawn up and presented to you in order that definite action may be taken upon it.”

Gibbons, when he had finished reading the document, placed it upon the reporters’ table for their closer inspection. He had drawn up the report himself and was naturally rather proud of the wording, and he hoped to see it printed in the newspapers. He turned to his audience, after saluting the chairman.

“Now, gentlemen, you have heard the report. The committee appointed by you, empowered by you, acting for you, vested in your authority, has done all in its power to bring this matter to an amicable conclusion; It has left no stone unturned, shrunk from no honourable means, spared no trouble, to bring about an understanding fair alike to employer and employee. But, gentlemen, your committee has been met at the very threshold with a difficulty which it could not surmount; a difficulty that has rendered all its efforts abortive. The firm of Monkton & Hope refers the committee to Mr. Sartwell, the manager, and Mr. Sartwell absolutely refuses to see the committee and discuss anything with it. This man, who was once a workman himself, now arrogates——”

Here one of the reporters pulled Gibbons’s coat-tail, and a whispered colloquy took place. When it was over, Gibbons continued: “A gentleman of the press has asked me a question—and a very proper question it is. He asks if we threatened Mr. Sartwell in any way with a strike, as has been rumoured. Gentlemen, no threats of any kind whatever have been used.” (Cheers.) “We have approached Mr. Sartwell with the same deference that we would have approached a member of Her Majesty’s Government if we had a petition to present. The sum and substance of the whole business is that Mr. Sartwell absolutely refuses to treat with his own men when they have——”

“That is not true,” said a voice, from the side of the hall.

The crowd turned their heads towards the sound, noticeably gleeful at the interruption. It promised liveliness ahead. There was a murmur of pleasurable anticipation. Gibbons turned sharply towards the point from which the voice came.

“What is not true?” he demanded.

“It’s not true that Mr. Sartwell refuses to see his own men.”

“Are you one of them?”

“Yes. Are you?”

There was a rustle of intense enjoyment at this palpable hit at Gibbons. The glib speaker himself was taken aback by the retort, but only for a moment.

“I thought,” continued the secretary, “that it might have been some one sent here to interrupt this meeting. This may still be the case, but we will waive that point. We will not follow Mr. Sartwell’s example, and if there is any friend of his present we shall be pleased to hear from him at the proper time. As I was about to say when I was int——”

“I answered your question; answer mine,” cried the voice.

Gibbons glanced appealingly at the Chair for protection, and Scimmins rapped feebly with his gavel on the table in front of him, saying, “Order, order,” but in a tone that he apparently hoped nobody would hear.

“What is your question?” asked Gibbons, with an angry ring in his voice.

“Are you an employee of Monkton & Hope?”

“I am secretary of the Union of which that firm’s men are a part, and I may add, the strongest Union in London. I am chairman of this committee, composed of that firm’s men. I did not seek the position, but was unanimously elected to it; therefore I claim that practically I am an employee of Monkton & Hope, and that no man here has a better right to speak for those employees—aye, or to stand up for them against oppression—than I have. And I will tell the man who interrupts me—I’ll tell him to his face—that I am not to be brow-beaten from the path of duty, by him, or by Mr. Sartwell either, as long as I retain the confidence of the men who put me here. I acknowledge no other masters. If you want to address this meeting, come up here on the platform and face it like a man, and not stand barking there like a dog. Let’s have a look at you.”

There was wild cheering at this. The fight was on, and the crowd was jubilant. This was the kind of talk they liked to hear.

Braunt smote young Marsten on the back and pushed him forward.

“Take oop the challenge, lad,” he cried. “Oop wi’ ye. I’ll follow ye, and give them some facts about the unemployed. We’ve got this meeting if we work it right. Oop wi’ ye, mate.”

Marsten went toward the platform, the crowd making way for him. Gibbons stood for a moment apparently surprised at this unexpected opposition, then walked back to his chair at the head of the committee. The good-natured gathering cheered when they saw the young man standing before them.

“Fellow-workingmen—” he began.

“Address the Chair,” admonished some one in the middle of the hall, whereat there was a laugh. Scimmins himself indulged in a sickly smile. The speaker reddened slightly, and in confused haste said:

“Mr. Chairman and fellow-workers——-”

The crowd cheered lustily, and it was some moments before Marsten could again get a hearing. A feeling of despair came over him as he stood before them. It was only too evident that they all looked upon the whole proceeding as a great lark, something in the way of a music-hall entertainment without the beer,—which was a drawback of course; but also without any charge for admission,—which was an advantage, for it left so much more cash to expend in stimulants after the fun was over. He wondered, as he looked at the chaffing jocular assemblage, whether he was taking too serious a view of the situation. There flashed across his mind a sentence he had heard in a lecture on socialism. “It is not the capitalist nor the government you have to conquer,” the lecturer had said, “but the workmen themselves.”

When the disorder had subsided so that his voice could be heard, Marsten went on:

“Mr. Gibbons asserted that the manager had refused to consult with his employees, and I claimed that such a statement was not true. Mr. Sartwell told me himself that he was willing to receive a deputation from the men of the works. He said——”

“What’s that?” cried Gibbons, springing to his feet and taking a step forward.

“Don’t interrupt the speaker,” shouted Braunt, from the body of the hall.

“He interrupted me,” roared Gibbons, now thoroughly angry. Turning to the young man who stood there silently, waiting for statement and retort to cease, the secretary demanded:

“When did Sartwell tell you that?”

“On Tuesday night.”

“On Tuesday night!” repeated Gibbons, coming to the front of the platform. “On Tuesday night! and you have the brazen cheek to stand here and admit it.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” asked Marsten, with perceptible self-control, but whitening around his tightened lips.

“Why shouldn’t you? I’ll tell you why. Because you sneaked in behind the backs of the committee you had helped to appoint. That’s why.”

“I had no hand in appointing the committee.”

“Every man in the works had a hand in appointing the committee. If you didn’t vote, then you neglected your duty. If you voted against the committee, you were bound by the result just as the committee would have been bound, if they had been defeated. That’s trade unionism—stand together or fall together. You, knowing a committee had been appointed to deal with this very business, must go crawling to Sartwell, and undermine the work of your fellow-unionists.”

“That’s a lie!” hissed Marsten, through his set teeth, in a low but intense tone of voice which was heard to the further end of the hall. The young man strode toward his antagonist, his right hand nervously clinching and unclinching. It was an electric moment,—the crowd held its breath. They expected the next move would be a blow.

Gibbons stood his ground without flinching. Not a muscle of his face moved except his eyelids, which partially closed over his eyes, leaving a slit through which a steely glance shot at Marsten; but his answer was not so truculent as his look.

“If it’s a lie,” he said calmly, to the evident disappointment of his hearers, “then the lie is not mine. I was merely putting your own statements in a little terser language; that’s all.”

Braunt, who had with difficulty kept his hot temper in hand during this colloquy on the stage, now roared at the top of his voice:

“Give t’ lad a chance to speak and shut your silly mouth. He’s called you a liar like a man and you daren’t take him oop like a man. Sit down, you fool!”

“I must really ask the protection of the Chair,” protested the secretary, turning to Scimmins. The latter, feeling that something was expected of him, rose rather uncertainly to his feet, and struck the table three or four times with his mallet.

“Order, order!” he cried. “If there is any more disturbance down there, the man will be put out of the meeting.

“What!” shouted Braunt. “Put me out! Egod! I’ll give ’ee th’ chance.”

The big man made his way toward the platform, brushing aside from his path a few who, in the interests of law and order, endeavoured to oppose him. The majority of those present, however, were manifestly of opinion that the progress of the angry man should not be barred, so they cheered his intervention and made encouraging remarks.

Braunt sprang upon the platform, advanced to the chair, smote his clinched fist on the table, and cried:

“Here I am, Scimmins. Now put me out; d’ye hear?”

He paused for a reply, but there was none. Scimmins, shrinking from him, obviously prepared for flight if Braunt attempted to storm the position. The Yorkshireman glared about him, but those on the platform appeared to think that the time for protest had not yet arrived. Meanwhile, the audience was calling loudly for a speech.

“I haven’t much to say, mates,” began Braunt, calming down through lack of opposition, “and I’m no man at the gab. I’m a worker, and all I want is a chance to earn my bread. But I’ll say this: I saw in t’ papers not so long ago that there’s twenty-seven thousand men of our trade out of work in England today. Twenty-seven thousand men anxious for a job. Now what is this man Gibbons asking you to do? He’s asking you to chook up your jobs and have your places taken by some of them twenty-seven thousand. Sartwell has only to put an advertisement in the papers, and he can fill the shops five times over in two days. It’s always easier to chook oop a job than to get a new one these times. I know, because I’ve tried it. So have most of you. Take my advice, and go no further with this nonsense. If Sartwell, as Mar-sten says, is willing to talk over grievances, then I say let us send him a deputation of our own men, with no outsiders among ’em. What’s the Union done for us? Taken our money every week, that’s all I can see. And now they have got so much of it they want to squander it fighting a strong man like Sartwell.”

Marsten had sat down on the edge of the platform. We are always quicker to perceive the mistakes of others than to recognize our own, and he did not like Braunt’s talk against the Union. He felt that it would be unpopular, besides he believed in the Union if it were properly led. His fight was against Gibbons, not against the organization.

Gibbons was in his chair, and he had rapidly taken the measure of the speaker. He saw that the address was having its effect, and that the crowd was slipping away from his control. It was a risky thing to do with such a powerful man, but he made up his mind that Braunt must be angered, when he would likely, in his violence, lose all the ground he had gained. So Gibbons quietly, with his eye, gathered up his trusty henchmen, who were scattered in different parts of the hall to give an appearance of unanimity to the shouting when the proper time came, and these men had now gradually edged to the front during the speaking. One or two had silently mounted the platform and held a whispered conference with the secretary, after which they and some others took their places behind the seated committee. When Sartwell was alluded to, Gibbons arose.

“Mr. Chairman,” he said, “I cannot allow——”

Braunt turned on him like a raging lion.

“Don’t you interrupt me,” he cried, rolling up his sleeves, “or I’ll bash you through that window.”

“Order, order!” said the chairman, faintly.

“Yes, an’ you atop o’ him!” shouted the infuriated man. “I’ve done it before.”

“Respect the meeting, if you have no regard for the Chair,” said Gibbons, calmly.

“You talk to us as if we were a parcel of fools,” cried a man in front. Braunt, like a baited bull, not knowing in which direction to rush, turned his eyes, blazing with rage, upon the last speaker. He shook his clenched fist and bared arm at the audience.

“What else are you?” he roared, at the top of his voice. “A parcel o’ dommed fools, all o’ ye. Led by the nose by a still bigger fool than any o’ ye. Yes; a set o’ chattering idiots, that’s what ye are, with not enough brains among the lot o’ ye to turn a grindstone. I know ye, a beer-sodden gang, with just enough sense to see that your pint mug’s full.”

By this time those in the hall were in a state of exasperation bordering on frenzy. A small door, to the right of the stage, connecting with an alley, had been opened, and a number of the more timid, seeing a storm impending, had quietly slipped out. The meeting was now a seething mob, crying for the blood of the man who stood there defying them and heaping contumely upon it.

Gibbons, his lips pale but firm, took a step forward. “We have had enough of this,” he said. “Get off the platform!”

Braunt turned as if on a pivot, and rushed at the secretary. The latter stepped nimbly back, and one of his supporters, with a running jump and hop, planted his boot squarely in Braunt’s stomach. The impetus was so great, and the assault so sudden and unexpected, that Braunt, powerful as he was, doubled up like a two-foot rule, and fell backward from the platform to the floor. Instantly a dozen men pounced upon him, and hustled him, in spite of his striking out right and left, through the open door into the alley. The door was closed and bolted in the twinkling of an eye—Braunt outside and his assailants within. It was all so neatly and so quickly done, that the police, who had been on the alert for some time, only reached the spot when the door was bolted. The crowd, with but the vaguest general notion of what had happened, beyond the sudden backward collapse of Braunt, raised a wild cheer for which Gibbons was thankful. He did not wish them to know that Braunt had been taken in hand by the police outside, and he had been very anxious, if an arrest were inevitable, that it should not take place in the hall, for then even Braunt’s violent tirade would not have prevented universal sympathy turning towards him. While the cheer was ringing up to the roof, Gibbons had heard a terrific blow delivered against the door, a blow that nearly burst in the bolt and made the faces of those standing near turn pale. Another crashing hit shattered the panel and gave a glimpse for one moment of bleeding knuckles. Then there was an indication of a short sharp struggle in the alley, and all was quiet save the reverberating echo of the cheer.

Gibbons strode to the front of the platform, and held up his hand for silence.

“I am very sorry,” he said, “that the last speaker made some remarks which ought not to have been made, but let us all remember that hard words break no bones. However, there has been enough talk for one night, and it is time to proceed to business. Gentlemen, you have heard the report of the committee—what is your pleasure?”

“I move,” said a man, rising in the middle of the hall, “that we go on strike.”

“I second that motion,” cried several voices.

“Put the motion,” whispered Gibbons to the bewildered chairman.

Scimmins rose to his feet.

“You have all heard the motion,” he said. “All in favour say aye.”

A seemingly universal shout of “Aye” arose. The chairman was on the point of resuming his seat when Gibbons, in a quick aside, said: “Contrary.”

“All to the contrary,” called out the chairman, hovering between sitting and standing.

There was no dissent, for Marsten had left to see what had become of his friend, and the timorous men had stolen away when they detected signs of disturbance.

“Motion’s carried,” said Scimmins, seating himself with every indication of relief.

“Unanimously,” added Gibbons loudly, unable to conceal his satisfaction with the result.