Mention has been made of the Stepney Advanced Club, where Dick Coppin thundered, and burning questions were discussed, and debates held on high political points, and where more ideas were submitted and more projects set forth in a single year than in all the rest of London in two years. The members of the Advanced Club were mostly young men, but there was a sprinkling among them of grizzled beards who remembered '48 and the dreams of Chartism. They had got by this time pretty well all they clamored for in their by-gone days, and when they thought of this, and remembered how everything was to go well as soon as the five points of the Charter were carried, and how every thing still remained in the same upside-down, topsy-turvy, one-sided, muddle-headed perverseness just as if those points had not been carried, they became sad. Nevertheless, the habit of demanding remained, because the reformer is like the daughter of the horse-leech, and still cries for more. Yet they had less confidence than of old in the reformer's great nostrum of destruction. The younger men, of course, were quite sure, absolutely sure, that with a little more upsetting and down-pulling the balance would be set right, and a beautiful straight level of universal happiness would be reached.

Angela heard, from time to time, of the meetings of this club. Harry told her how his cousin Dick had surpassed himself; how they were going to abolish Crown, Church, and House of Lords, with landlordism, lawyers, established armies, pauperdom, Divesdom, taxes, and all kinds of things which the hateful Tory or that pitiful creature the moderate Liberal considers necessary for the welfare of the state. And she knew that Harry went there and spoke occasionally, and that he had made in a quiet way some sort of mark among the members. One evening, about this time, she met Dick Coppin returning from his work, in which, unlike his cousin, he did not disdain the apron nor the box of tools.

"There's going to be a debate on Sunday," he said, half shyly and half boastfully, "at the club. It's on the abolition of the House of Lords. I am going to speak, and if you like to come, you and one or two of the girls, I'll pass you in, and you will hear a thing or two that will open your eyes."

"That is very good of you, Mr. Coppin. I always like to have my eyes opened. Will there be many speakers?"

"There will be ME," he replied with simple grandeur. "I don't think, when I've said my say, that there will remain much more to be said by anybody. Cousin Harry may get up, perhaps"—his face assumed a little uneasiness—"but no, I don't think he will find any holes in me. I've got the facts; I've gone to the right quarter to get 'em. No: he can't deny my facts."

"Very well, Mr. Coppin. Perhaps we will go to hear you. But be very sure about your facts."

Angela said nothing about the proposed debate or her intention of being present, but she learned from Harry that there really was going to be a field-night, and that Dick Coppin was expected to come out in more than his usual strength. The informant said nothing about his own intentions. Indeed, he had none, but he was falling into the habit of spending an hour or two at the club on Sunday evening before finishing off with the girls; sometimes he spoke, but oftener he listened and came away silent and reflected. The Advanced Club offered ample material for one who knows how to reflect. Humanity is a grand subject, and, in fact, is the only subject left for an epic poem. But perhaps the action would drag. Here, Harry saw, was a body of men, old and young, all firmly persuaded that things were wrong; that things might be made better, yet casting about blindly for a remedy, and crying aloud for a leader. And those who desired to lead them had nothing to offer but a stone instead of bread. The fact that this young man did listen and reflect shows how greatly he was changed from him whom we first met in the prologue. Regular hours, simple living, reasonably hard work strengthened his nerves for anything; he was harder; the men with whom he talked were rougher, and the old carelessness was gone. He kept his gayety of heart, yet it was sobered; he felt responsible. He knew so much more than the men around him that he felt a consuming desire to set them right, but could not, for he was tongue-tied; he had not yet found liberty, as the old preachers used to say; when he felt most strongly that the speakers were on a false track he spoke most feebly; he wanted to be a prophet, and there were only confused ideas, blurred perceptions to work upon. Now the first steps toward being a prophet—which is a most laudable ambition—is to see quite clearly one's self and to understand what one means. He could set a man right as to facts, he could shut up a speaker and make the club laugh, but he could not move them. As yet Harry was only in the position occupied during a long life by the late prophet of Chelsea, inasmuch as he distinctly perceived the folly of his neighbors, but could teach no way of wisdom. This is a form of prophetical utterance which has never possessed much weight with the people; they want direct teaching and a leader who knows what he means and whither he would conduct them, if it be only in the direction of one of those poor, old worn-out panaceas once warranted to guarantee universal happiness, like the ballot-box. Not that Harry grew miserable over his failure to prophesy—not at all; he only wished for words of wisdom and power, and sat meanwhile with his hands in his pockets and his hat pulled over his eyes like a minister in the House of Commons, while the members of the club poured forth their frothy declamation, each louder than his predecessor, trying to catch the applause of an assembly which generally shouted for the loudest. The times might be out of joint, but Harry felt no inspiration as to the way of setting them right; if a thing came to him he would say it—if not, he would wait. The great secret about waiting is that while a man waits he thinks, and if he thinks in solitude and waits long enough, letting words lie in his brain and listening to ideas which come upon him, sometimes singly and slowly, sometimes in crowds like the fancies of a wakeful night, there presents itself an idea at last which seizes upon him and holds him captive, and works itself out in his brain while he mechanically goes on with the work, the rest, the toil, and the pleasure of his daily life. Solitary work is favorable to meditation; therefore, while Harry was shaping things at his lathe undisturbed by no one, his brain was at work. And a thought came to him which lay there dimly perceived at first, but growing larger daily till it filled his head and drew unto itself all his other thoughts, so that everything he saw, or read, or heard, or meditated upon, became like a rill or rivulet which goes to swell a great river. And it was this thought, growing into shape at last, which he proclaimed to the members of the Advanced Club on the night of their great debate.

It was not a large hall, but it was perfectly filled with people; chiefly they were men and young men, but among them were a good many women and girls. Does it ever occur to the "better class" that the work of woman's emancipation is advancing in certain circles with rapid strides? That is so, nevertheless; and large, if not pleasant, results may be expected in a few years therefrom. It must be remembered that for the most part they start perfectly free from any trammels of religion. It has been stated that the basis of all their philosophy is, and always will be, the axiom that every one must get as much as possible for herself out of the rather limited ration of pleasure supplied to humanity. Whether that is true I know not. Angela watched these women with curiosity; they were mostly young, and some of them were pretty, and there was absolutely nothing to show that they thought differently from any other women. Some of them had brought their work; some were talking; they were not excited by the prospect of the coming debate—they expected, in fact, nothing more than they had already heard over and over again. There was too much gas, the atmosphere was already heavy and the walls already shiny, before the meeting began. On the platform was a chair for the chairman, with a table and a hammer and a decanter of water and a glass. Angela sat far back against the door, with Captain Sorensen and Nelly. She was silent, wondering at these people and why they should trouble themselves about the House of Lords, and whether they never felt any desire at all for the religion which brings joy and happiness to so many suffering lives. Presently she saw Harry walk slowly up the middle aisle and take a place, for there was no chair, on the steps which led to the platform. She was so far back that he could not see her, for which afterward she was glad.

The chairman, a man stricken in years, with gray hair and a grizzled beard, and one of those ex-Chartists of whom we have spoken, took the chair, hammered the table, and opened the debate. He was a man of great reputation, having been all his life an Irreconcilable, and he was suspected of being a Socialist, and was certainly a Red Republican. He began in the usual way by stating as an axiom that the people can do no wrong; that to intrust the destinies of a nation to the People is to insure its greatness; that Manhood is the only rank—and so forth, all in capital letters with notes of admiration. The words were strong, but they produced no effect, because the speech had been made before a great many times, and the people knew it by heart. Therefore, though it was the right thing to say, and the thing expected of a chairman, nobody paid any attention.

The discussion, which was all one-sided, then began. Two or three young men rose one after the other; they were listened to with the indulgence which is always accorded to beginners. None of them made a point, or said a good thing, or went outside the theories of untaught, if generous youth, and their ignorance was such as to make Angela almost weep.

Then Dick Coppin mounted the platform, and advanced, amid the plaudits of the expectant audience. He ran his fingers through his coarse, black hair, straightened himself up to his full height of five feet six, drank a little water, and then, standing beside the chairman's table with his right hand resting upon it when he was not waving it about, he began, slowly at first, but afterward with fluent speech and strong words, and a ringing voice, the harangue which he had so carefully prepared. Of course, he condemned the House of Lords tooth and nail; it must be destroyed root and branch; it was a standing insult to the common sense of the nation; it was an effete and worn-out institution, against which the enlightenment of the age cried out aloud; it was an obstruction to Progress; it was a menace to the people; it was a thing of the past; it was an enemy of the working-man; it was a tyrant, who had the will but not the power to tyrannize any longer; it was a toothless old wolf, who could bark but could not bite. Those free and enlightened men sitting before him, members of the Advanced Club, had pronounced its doom—therefore, it must go. The time had come when the nation would endure no longer to have a privileged class, and would be mocked no more by the ridiculous spectacle of hereditary legislators.

He pursued this topic with great freedom of language and a great eloquence of a rough and uncultivated kind; his hearers, getting gradually warmed, interrupted him by those plaudits which go straight to the heart of the born orator, and stir him to his strongest and his best.

Then he changed his line and attempted to show that the families which compose the Upper House are themselves, as well as their institution, worn-out, used up, and lost to the vigor which first pushed them to the front. Where were now their fighting men? he asked. Where were their orators? Which among them all was of any real importance to his party? Which of them had in modern times done anything, proposed anything, or thought of anything for the advancement of knowledge or the good of the people? Not one able man, he said, among them; luxury had ruined and corrupted all; their blood was poisoned; they could drink and eat; they could practise other luxurious habits, which he enumerated with fidelity, lest there should be any mistake about the matter; and then they could go to the House reeling into it drunk with wine, and oppose the Will of the People.

Then he turned from generalities to particulars, and entertained his audience with anecdotes gleaned, Heaven knows how, from the private histories of many noble families, tending to show the corruption into which the British aristocracy had fallen. These anecdotes were received with that keenness which always awaits stories which show how wicked other people are, and what are the newest fashions and hitherto unknown forms of vice. Angela marvelled, on her part, to hear "scandal about Queen Elizabeth" at Stepney.

Then, after an impeachment which lasted for half an hour, he thundered forth an appeal—not at all novel to his hearers, yet still effective, because his voice was like a trumpet—to the men before him to rise in their millions, their majesty, and their might, and to bear the accursed thing down.

He sat down, at last, wiping his forehead, and exhausted but triumphant. Never before had he so completely carried his audience with him; never before had he obtained such flow of language, and such mastery over his voice; never before had he realized so fully that he was, he himself, an orator inferior to none. As he sat down, while the men clapped their hands and cheered, a vision of greatness passed before his mind. He would be the Leader of the People; they should look to him as they had never yet looked to any man for guidance. And he would lead them. Whither? But, this, in the dream of the moment, mattered nothing.

A cold chill came over him as he saw his cousin Harry leap lightly to the platform and take his place at the table. For he foresaw trouble; and all the more because those of the audience who knew Gentleman Jack laughed in expectation of that trouble. Fickle and fleeting is the breath of popular favor; only a moment before and they were cheering him to the skies; now they laughed because they hoped he was to be made to look a fool. But the orator took heart, considering that his facts were undeniable.

When the tumult had subsided, Harry, to everybody astonishment, laid his hand upon his cousin's shoulder—a gesture of approbation—and looked round the room, and said quietly, but loud enough to be heard by all:

"My cousin, Dick Coppin, can talk. That was a very good speech of his, wasn't it?"

Voices were heard asking if he could better it.

"No," Harry replied, "I can't, I wish I could." He took his place beside the table, and gazed for a few moments at the faces below him. Angela observed that his face was pale, though the carriage of his head was brave. "I wish," he repeated, "that I could. Because, after all these fireworks, it is such a tame thing just to tell you that there wasn't a word of sense in the whole speech."

Here there were signs of wrath, but the general feeling was to let the speaker have his say.

"Do you suppose—any of you—that Dick believes that the Lords go rolling drunk to the House? Of course he doesn't. Do you suppose that he thinks you such fools as to believe it? Of course he doesn't. But then, you see, Dick must have his fireworks. And it was a first-rate speech. Do you suppose he believes the Lords are a worn-out lot? Not he. He knows better. And if any of you feel inclined to think so, go and look at them. You will find them as well set up as most, and better. You can hear some of them in the House of Commons, where you send them, you electors. Wherever there are Englishmen working, fighting, or sporting, there are some of those families among them. As for their corruption, that's fireworks, too. Dick has told you some beautiful stories which he challenged anybody to dispute. I dare say they are all true. What he forgot to tell you is that he has picked out these stories from the last hundred and fifty years, and expects you to believe that they all happened yesterday. Shall we charge you, members of the club, with all the crimes of the Whitechapel Road for a hundred years? If you want to upset the House of Lords, go and do it. But don't do it with lies on your lips, and on false pretences. You know how virtuous and moral you are yourselves. Then just remember that the members of the House of Lords are about as moral as you are, or rather better. Abolish the House of Lords if you like. How much better will you be when it is gone? You can go on abolishing. There is the Church. Get it disestablished. Think how much better you will all be when the churches are pulled down. Yet you couldn't stay away any more then than you do. You want the Land Laws reformed. Get them reformed, and think how much land you will get for yourselves out of that reform.

"Dick Coppin says you have got the power. So you have. He says the last Reform Bill gave it to you. There he makes a mistake. You have always had the power. You have always had all the power there is. It is yours, because you are the people, and what the people want they will have. Your power is your birthright. You are an irresistible giant, who has only to roar in order to get what he wants.

"Well, why don't you roar? Because you don't know what you do want. Because your leaders don't know any more than yourselves; because they go bawling for things which will do you no good, and don't know what it is you do want.

"You think that by making yourselves into clubs and calling yourselves Radicals, you are getting forward. You think that by listening to a chap like my cousin Dick, who's a clever fellow and a devil for fireworks, you somehow improve your own condition. Did you ever ask yourselves what difference the form of government makes? I have been in America where, if anywhere, the people have it their own way. Do you think work is more plentiful, wages better, hours shorter, things cheaper in a republic? Do you think the heels of your boots last any longer? If you do, think so no longer. Whether the House of Lords, or the Church, or the Land Laws stand or fall, that, my friends, makes not the difference of a penny-piece to any single man among us. You who agitate for their destruction are generously giving your time and trouble for things which help no man. And yet there are so many things that can help us.

"It comes of your cursed ignorance" (Harry was warming up)—"I say, your cursed ignorance. You know nothing; you understand nothing of your own country. You do not know how its institutions have grown up; why it is so prosperous; why changes, when they have to be made, should be made slowly and not before they are necessary; nor how you yourselves may climb up, if you will, into a life above you, much happier, much more pleasant. You do not respect the old institutions, because you don't know them; you desire new things because you don't understand the old. Go—learn—make your orators learn, and make them teach you. And then send them to the House of Commons to represent you.

"You think that governments can do everything for you. You fools! has any government ever done anything for you? Has it raised your wages—has it shortened your hours? Can it protect you against rogues and adulterers? Will it ever try to better your position? Never, never, never!—because it cannot. Does any government ask what you want—what you ought to want? No. Can it give you what you want? No.

"Listen. You want clean streets and houses in which decent folks can live. The government has appointed sanitary officers. Yet, look about you! Put your heads in the courts of Whitechapel. What has the sanitary officer done? You want strong and well-built houses. There are government inspectors; yet, look at the lath and plaster houses that a child could kick over. You want honest food—all that you eat and drink is adulterated. How does the government help you there?

"You have the power—all the power there is. You cannot use it, because you don't know how. You expect the government to use your power—to do your work. My friends, I will tell you the secret. Whatever you want done you must do for yourselves! No one else will do it for you. You must agree that such and such shall be done; and then, be very sure, you will get it done.

"In politics you are used as the counters of a game—each side plays with you. Not for you, mind. You get nothing, whichever side is in—you are the pawns.

"It is something, perhaps, to take even so much part in the game; but, as you get nothing but the honor, I am rather surprised at your going on with it. And, if I might advise, it would be that we give that game over, and play one by ourselves, in which there really is something to be got.

"What we must play for is what we want. What we have got to do is, to remember that when we say we will have a thing—nobody can resist us. Have it we must, because we are the masters.

"Now then, what do we want?"

Harry was quite serious by this time, and so were the faces of those who listened—though there was a little angry doubt on some of them. No one replied to the question. Some of the younger men looked as if they might, perhaps, have answered in the words of the sailor—"More rum." But they refrained, and preserved silence.

"What do we want? Has any one of you considered what we do want? Let me tell you a few things. I can't think of many; but I know a few that you ought to put first.

"You want your own local government—what every little country town has, you have not. You want to elect your own aldermen, mayors, guardians, and school-boards—be yourselves—be yourselves. Get that first, and abolish the House of Lords afterward.

"There is your food? You ought to get your beef from America, at threepence a pound, and you are contented to give a shilling. You ought to have your fish at twopence a pound, and you pay whatever they choose to charge you. You drink bad beer, bad spirits, bad tea, bad cocoa, bad coffee, because you don't know that the things are bad and dear; and because you don't understand that you have only got to resolve in order to get all this changed. It is, you see, your cursed ignorance.

"There are your houses! The rich people—having more knowledge than you, and more determination—have found out how to build houses so as to prevent fevers. You live in houses built to catch fever—fever-traps! When you find out what you want, you will refuse to live in such houses. You will refuse to let anybody live in such houses. You will come out of them—you will have them pulled down.

"When it comes to building up better houses, you will remember that paid inspectors are squared by the builders—so that the cement is mud and sand; and the bricks are crumbling clay; and the walls crack, and the floors are shaky. Therefore you will be your own inspectors.

"The Government makes us send our children to boarding schools to be educated. That would be very noble of the Government if they had first considered—which nobody has—what sort of education a working-man wants. As yet they have only got as far as spelling. When a boy can spell they think he is educated. Once it was all kings of Israel—now it is all spelling. Is that what you want? Do you think it matters how you spell, so that you know? Are you contented that your children shall know nothing about this great country—nothing of its wealth and people; nothing of their duties as citizens; nothing of their own trade? Shall they not be taught that theirs is the power—that they can do what they like, and have what they like, if they like?

"Do you resolve that the education of your children shall be real, and it will become real; but don't look to Government to do it or it will continue to be spelling. Find out the thing that you want, and send your own men to the school-boards to get that thing done.

"Another thing that you want is pleasure—men can't do without it. Can Government give you that? They can shut the public-houses at twelve—what more can they do? But you—you do not know how to enjoy yourselves. You don't know what to do. You can't play music, nor sing, nor paint, nor dance—you can do nothing. You get no pleasure out of life, and you won't get it—even by abolishing everything.

"Take that simple question of a holiday. We take ours, like the fools we are, all in droves, by thousands and millions, on bank holidays. Why do we do that? Why do we not insist on having our holidays at different times in the year, without these monstrous crowds which render enjoyment impossible? And why do we not demand—what is granted to every little quill-driving clerk in the city—our fortnight every year with nothing to do, and drawing full pay? That is one of your wants, and you don't know it. The reform of the land laws, my brothers, will not bring you one inch nearer getting this want."

At this point the chairman nodded his head approvingly. Perhaps he had never before realized how all his life he had neglected the substance and swallowed the shadow. The old man sat listening patiently with his head in his hands. Never before had any workman—any one of his own class—spoken like this young fellow, who talked and looked like a swell—though they knew him for what he was. Pleasure! Yes—he had never consisted that life might have its delights. Yet, what delights?

"There is another thing, and the blackest of all." Harry paused a moment: but the men were listening, and now in earnest.

"I mean the treatment of your girls—your sisters and your daughters! Men, you have combined together and made your unions for yourselves—you have forced upon your employers terms which nothing but combination would have compelled them to accept. You are paid twice what you received twenty years ago. You go in broadcloth—you are well fed. You have money in your pocket. But you have clean forgotten the girls.

"Think of the girls.

"They have no protection but a Government act forbidding more than ten hours' work. Who cares for a Government act? It is defied daily. Those who frame these acts know very well that they are powerless to maintain them; because, my friends, the power is with the people—you. If you resolve that an act shall become a law, you make it so. Everything, in the end, is by the people and through the people.

"You have done nothing for your girls—you leave them to the mercies of employers, who have got to cut down expenses to the last farthing. They are paid starvation wages. They are kept in unwholesome rooms. They are bound to the longest hours. They are oppressed with fines. The girls grow up narrow-chested, stooping, consumptive—they are used up wholesale. And what do you do for them. Nothing. There are girls and women in this hall: can any one of them here get up and say that the working-men have raised a finger for them?

"The worst charge any man can bring against you is that you care nothing for your girls.

"Why, it is only the other day that a Dressmakers' Association has been opened among you—you all know where it is. You all know what it tries to do for the girls. Yet, what single man among you has ever had the pluck to stand up for his sisters who are working in it?"

Then Harry stepped right to the edge of the platform and spread out his hands, changing his voice.

"You are good fellows," he said, "and you've given me fair play. There isn't a country in the world, except Ireland, where I could have had this fair play. Don't misunderstand me—I tell you, and I don't think you knew it before, that the time has come when the people should leave off caring much about the Government, or expecting any good thing for themselves from any government; because it can't be done in that way. You must find out for yourselves what you want, and then you must have that done. You must combine for these things as you did for wages, and you will get them. And if you spend half the energy in working for yourselves that you have spent in working for things that do you no good you will be happy indeed.

"Your politics, I say again, will do nothing for you—do you hear—nothing at all; but yours is the power. Let us repeat it again and again—all the power is yours. Try what Government can do. Send Dick Coppin into Parliament—he's a clever chap—and tell him to do what he can for you. He will do nothing. Therefore, work for yourselves, and by yourselves. Make out what you want, and resolve to have it—nobody can prevent you. The world is yours to do what you like with. Here in England, as in America, the working-man is master—provided the working-man knows what he wants. The first thing you want, I reckon, is good lodging. The second, is good food. The third is good drink—good, unadulterated beer, and plenty of it. The fourth is good and sensible education. The fifth is holiday and pleasure; and the last, which is also the first, is justice for our girls. But don't be fools. I have been among you in this club a good many times. It goes to my heart every time I come to see so many clever men and able men wasting their time in grievances which don't hurt them, when they are surrounded by a hundred grievances which they have only to perceive in order to sweep them away.

"I am a Radical, like yourselves; but I am a Social Radical. As for your political jaw, it plays the game of those who use you. Politics is a game of lying accusations and impossible promises. The accusations make you angry—the promises make you hopeful. But you get nothing in the long run; and you never will. Because—promise what they may—it is not laws or measures that will improve our lot; it is by our own resolution that it shall be improved. Hold out your hands and take the things that are offered you—everything is yours if you like to have it. You are in a beautiful garden filled with fruits, if you care to pick them; but you do not. You lie grubbing in the mud, and crying out for what will do you no good. Voices are calling to you—they offer you such a life as was never yet conceived by the lordliest House of Lords—a life full of work, and full of pleasure. But you don't hear—you are deaf. You are blind—you are ignorant."

He stopped; a hoarse shout greeted his peroration. Harry wondered for a moment if this was applause or disapproval. It was the former. Then one man rose and spoke.

"Damn him!" he cried. Yet the phrase was used in no condemnatory spirit; as when a mother addresses her boy as a naughty little rogue-pogue. "Damn him! He shall be our next member."

"No," said Harry, clapping his cousin on the shoulder, "here is your next member; Dick Coppin is your boy. He is clever—he is ambitious. Tell him what you want, and he'll get it for you if any one can. But, O men! find out what you want, and have it. Yours—yours—yours is the power. You are the masters of the world. Leave the humbug of Radicalism, and Liberalism, and Toryism. Let dead politics bury their dead—learn to look after your own interests. You are the kings and lords of humanity. The old kings and lords are no more—they are swept away! They are only shadows of the past. With you are the sceptre and the crown. You sit upon the throne, and when you know how to reign, you shall reign as never yet king was known to reign; but first find out what you want."

He lightly leaped from the platform and stepped down the hall—he had said his say, and was going. The men laughed and shouted—half angry, half pleased, but wholly astonished; and Dick Coppin, with a burning cheek, sat humiliated yet proud of his cousin.

At the door Harry met Miss Kennedy, with Captain Sorensen and Nelly.

"We have heard your speech," said Angela, with brightened eyes and glowing cheeks. "Oh, what did I tell you? You can speak, you can persuade; you can lead. What a career—what a career lies before the man who can persuade and lead!"