"I"m an eventuality," said Foe.
"You"ll be one of _us_, sir, before you"ve finished, never fear!" the little steward promised genially.
We entered amid salvos of applause, again and again renewed. It was none of our earning nor intended for us. Jenkinson (I was afterwards told) had varied his peroration with a local allusion very cleverly introduced. "They probably knew him" (he said)--"those, at any rate, who happened to live near Kennington probably knew him--for one who earned his living by a form of sport, by a mere game, if they preferred so to call it." (Cheers.) "He was not there to defend himself, still less to defend cricket." (Hear, hear.) "He would only say that cricket was a game which demanded some skill and-- especially when one bowled at the Oval" (loud cheers) "against Surrey" (cheers loud and prolonged)--"often some endurance."
(Laughter.) "He would add that cricket was a thoroughly English game." (Renewed cheers.) "Why do I mention cricket to-night, sir?"--Jenkinson swung round and demanded it of the Chairman, who hadn"t a notion. "I mention it, sir, because players have sometimes said to me, "Jenkinson, I wonder you always seem to enjoy yourself at the Oval." "Why not?" says I; "the crowd"s friendly and the pitch perfect." "That"s just it," they say; "perfect to break a bowler"s heart." "Never you mind." I answers: "Tom Jenkinson, when he gets into Surrey, isn"t out for averages."" (Can"t you hear the cheers at that?) ""He"s out for fine art and a long day at it in pleasant surroundings: and," I winds up, "if you reckon I sometimes take a while, down there, to bowl a man _out_, just you wait till I come down and help to bowl a man _in_!" Your servant, Mr. Farrell!"
Neat, eh? Well, we made our entrance right on top of it: and though the great Bath was no more than three-parts full, you couldn"t see a vacant seat, the audience rocked so.
Now I must tell you a queer thing. . . . You know what it feels like when you"re talking away easily, maybe laughing, and all of a sudden the Bosch puts in one that you feel means business? Something in the sound of the devil makes you scatter. . . . Well, I can"t explain it, but through the noise of the stamping, hand-clapping, cheering, all of a sudden and without rhyme or reason, I seemed to hear the shriek of something distant, sinister, menacing. . . . Oh, I"m not an imaginative fellow. Very likely it was a note set up by the wind outside. I can"t even swear that I _heard_ it; sort of took it down my spine. Shrill it was for a moment--something between a child"s wail and the hiss of a snake--and, the next moment, not shrill at all, but dull and heavy, like the flap of a great wing beating the air, heavy with evil. . . . Yes, that was the sense of it--heavy with evil. I pulled up with a shiver. The Chairman was on his feet, waiting for the applause to cease, ready to announce the next speaker. The little steward touched him by the arm; he wheeled about and shook my hand effusively as I was introduced. "Delighted!
Flattered!" he said, and shook me by the hand again. The shiver went out of me: but it took something out of me at the same time. I had a most curious feeling of depression as I found my place. . . . I looked about for Foe, and spotted him. They had given him a chair close under the platform, a little to my right. He had taken his seat and was scanning the platform attentively. The arc-light shone down on his face, and showed it white, bewildered, a trifle strained. . . . But this may have been no more than my fancy.
The Chairman asked for silence. He was a bald-headed small man of no particular points and (as Jimmy whispered) seemed to feel his position acutely. He said that, whatever their personal differences, they would all agree that Mr. Jenkinson"s speech had uplifted them above ordinary politics. He had felt himself speaking not as their Chairman but as a private individual--or, in other words, as a man-- uplifted into a higher plane, and he would now call upon their respected candidate, Mr. Farrell, to address the meeting.
Mr. Farrell stepped forward. I must try to tell you what Mr. Farrell looked like, because it belongs to the story. . . . You"ll find that it becomes pretty important.
He was of medium height and carried a belly. Later on, when I came to know him, I heard him refer to it as his "figure" and say that exercise was good for it. I don"t know about that: but he certainly was given exercise to reduce it, later on. . . . He could not have been ashamed of it either, just yet: for it was clothed in front with sealskin and festooned with two loops of gold chain.
Two or three locks of hair, cultivated to a great length and plastered by means of pomade across his cranium, concealed a certain poverty of undergrowth thereabouts; while a pair of whiskers, sandy in colour and stiff in texture, and a clean-shaven upper lip and chin, threw out a challenge that Mr. Peter Farrell could grow hair if and where he chose. His eyes bulged like gooseberries. They were colourless, and l.u.s.treless in comparison with the diamond pin in his neckcloth. His frock-coat and pepper-and-salt trousers were of superfine material and flashy cut. They fitted him like a skin in all the wrong places. Get it into your heads--Here was a prosperous reach-me-down person of the sort you will find on any political platform, standing for Parliament or seconding a vote of thanks.
He was not in the least b.u.mptious. He began very nervously with a carefully prepared Shakespearean quotation--""I am no orator as Brutus is,"" in compliment to Jenkinson. Then he gave _me_ a lift.
He said that my presence there was a proof, if proof were needed, of the solidarity--he would repeat the word--of the solidarity existing in the Progressive ranks. He was sure--he might even say, confident--that this graceful act on the part of the right honourable baronet (as he chose to call me) would give the lie to certain reports--hints, rather--emanating from certain quarters which called themselves newspapers. He would not soil his mouth by giving them their true name, which was Rags. "We are all solid here," announced Mr. Farrell, and was answered with applause.
After this spirited opening he consulted a sheaf of notes, and was straightway mired in a ploughland of tramway finance and sticky statistics. After ten minutes of this he turned a furrow, so to speak, and zigzagged off into Education "Provided" and "Non-Provided," lunging and floundering with the Church Catechism and the Rate-Book until I dare say his audience mistook the two for one single composition.
"Poor old Jack!" I thought. "This will be boring him stiff." . . .
And with that I sat up of a sudden, listening. Sure as fate I heard the d.a.m.ned thing coming . . . coming . . .
"This brings me," said Mr. Farrell, "to the subject of Grants--Grants from the Imperial Exchequer and Special Grants from the London County Council to certain University Colleges, of which you have one in your midst--" It was at this point that I sat up.
"I may claim," went on Mr. Farrell, "to be no foe of Higher Education. I am all for the Advancement of Science. In my own way of business I have frequently had occasion to consult scientific experts, and have derived benefit--practical benefit--from their advice. I freely own it. What"s more, ladies and gentlemen, I am all for Research, provided you keep it within limits.
"What do I mean by limits? . . . I have here, in my hand, ladies and gentlemen, a doc.u.ment. It is signed by a number of influential persons, including several ladies of t.i.tle. This doc.u.ment alleges-- er--certain practices going on in a certain University College not five hundred yards from where I stand at this moment; and it asks me what I think of them, and if public money--your money and mine-- should be voted to encourage that and similar forms of Research--"
"Great Scott!" groaned Jimmy, and touched my arm. "Otty, look at the Professor"s face! To think we--"
"I have also," pursued Mr. Farrell, "a supplementary paper, extensively signed in the const.i.tuency, supporting the doc.u.ment mentioned and asking for a Public Inquiry; asking me if I am willing to press for a Royal Commission. It was put into my hands as I entered the hall; but I have no hesitation whatever in answering that question.
"A certain Professor is mentioned--I have not the pleasure of his acquaintance--and a certain--er--" Mr. Farrell consulted his papers-- "Laboratory of Physiological Research. I made my own way in the world. But I am an Englishman, I hope; and when such a doc.u.ment as this, influentially signed, is put into my hands and an answer demanded of me, what sort of answer do I give? The answer I give, ladies and gentlemen, is that I keep a spaniel at home, though not for sporting purposes, and still less for purposes of Physiological Research"--Every time the a.s.s came to these two words he made elaborate pretence of consulting his papers.
"Nine times out of ten this dumb friend and dependent of mine greets me in the hall as I reach home after a hard day"s business, wagging his tail in a way almost more than human. And when I think of me going home to-night, with this doc.u.ment--signed, as I say, by persons of t.i.tle and supported by this influential body of rate-payers--and look into his dumb eyes and think it might happen to my Dash to be laid on a board in the interests of this so-called Research, and there vivisected alive, then I say--"
"_It"s a lie!_"
Foe was on his legs, and he fairly shouted it. Sh.e.l.l-shock?
_Phut!_--It exploded right at our feet below the platform. Farrell came staggering back, right on top of us; but the reason may have been partly that Jimmy had reached forward, too late, and gripped his coat-tails. Of course the man"s offence was unpardonable; but I could hardly recognise Jack"s face, so drawn it was and twisted in white-hot hate.
There was silence while you might count five, perhaps. The audience, taken right aback for that s.p.a.ce, had begun to rise and crane forward. "Who is it?"--you could almost hear the question starting to run.
Then again, for a few seconds, things happened just as they do in rowdy public meetings. While the Chairman thumped the table, Farrell wrenched his coat-tails from Jimmy"s grip and stepped to the edge of the platform.
"Who are you?" he demanded. There was a queer throaty sound in his voice; yet he held himself (I thought) in fair control.
"My name is Foe," came the answer. Jack was still on his feet, his face ashen, his eyes blazing behind his gla.s.ses. I had known him all these years and never guessed him capable of such a white rage.
But the words came very slowly and deliberately. "My name is Foe.
I am the Professor with whom, just now, you said you hadn"t the pleasure to be acquainted--"
"Throw him out!" called a voice from one of the back rows.
I had expected that; had, as you might say, been waiting for it.
What caught me unprepared was its instant effect on Mr. Farrell.
He raised a fist and shook it. He fairly capered. "Yes, throw him out! Throw him out!" He choked, spluttered and let it out almost in a scream. I leaned forward for a sideways sight of his face.
"Gad! he"s going to have a fit and tumble off the platform.
Stand by, Otty." Jimmy, reaching out a hand again for Mr. Farrell"s coat-tails, spoke the warning close in my ear, for by this time twenty or thirty voices had taken up the cry, "Throw him out!" the Chairman was hammering like mad for Order, and there was an ugly shuffle of feet at the far end of the hall.
"Throw him out! Throw him out!" Farrell kept screaming above the hubbub. "How would _he_ treat a dog?--"
"The man"s demented," said I--and with that I heard a bench or a chair go crack like a revolver-shot. It might have been a shot starting a sprint; for close on top of it about a dozen fellows leapt out into the gangway, while three or four charged forward through the audience, where the women had already started to scream.
There was nothing for it but prompt action. Jimmy and I swung ourselves down over the front of the platform. This gave us a fair start of the crowd, but it didn"t give us any time to argue with Foe, who still stood glaring up at Farrell, ready to put in another retort as soon as he could get a hearing. Of the danger rushing down on him either he wasn"t aware or he cared nothing for it. Jimmy caught him by the waist, and grinned intelligently as I pointed to the emergency exit around the corner of the platform.
"Right-O! Hold the curtain aside for me. . . . Along you come, Professor! Be a good child and don"t kick nursy . . ."
"Take him home," said I. "Policeman will help if there"s a row outside."
Then I dropped the curtain on them and faced about. The audience by this time were standing on benches and chairs, but of course my first job was with the hustlers who had reached the end of the gangway and were coming on under the lee of the platform. They looked ugly at first, but the job turned out to be a soft one.
"You wanted him turned out," said I, "and we"ve obliged you.
Rather neatly, eh?--You can"t say no to that."
I wanted someone to laugh, and by the mercy of Heaven someone did-- someone back in the third or fourth row. In five seconds or so quite a lot of people were laughing and applauding.
"Now stand where you are," said I, catching hold of this advantage; "and one of you give me a leg up to the platform. I"m going to propose a vote of thanks. . . . Won"t keep you standing long.
But please don"t go back to your seats; because some of the women are frightened."
Well, they gave me a leg up, and somebody above gave me a hand, and there I was, none the worse, on the platform.
Farrell had collapsed in his seat by the Chairman"s table and sat with his face in his hands. The Chairman was paralytic. So I did the only thing that seemed possible: started to propose a vote of thanks. Pretty fair rubbish I must have started with, too: but by and by I slipped into my own election speech and after that it was pretty plain sailing. You see, when a man runs for candidate, he begins by preparing half a dozen speeches; but by the time he"s half through he has them pretty well boiled down into one, and he can speak that one in his sleep. After ten minutes or so I forgot that I was moving a vote of thanks to somebody and moved a vote of confidence instead--confidence in Mr. Farrell.
n.o.body minded. Two or three speakers followed me and moved and seconded all sorts of things at random. We were all in a hopeless muddle, and all quite good-humoured about it; and we wound up by singing "G.o.d Save the King!"
NIGHT THE THIRD.
THE GRAND RESEARCH.