The chairman was evidently a man of a considerably higher social grade than most of his associates, and was elevated to the position he at present occupied for that reason, and not for any mental superiority. Indeed, among all the faces present, his was the most strikingly distinguished for an entire absence of any intellectual expression. An elderly man, with white hair, whiskers, and hair under his chin, with a look of self-importance which was laughable in its inordinate vanity. He was a bad speaker, and delivered his harangues with an exaggeration of attitude, and an inflated pomposity of manner, at which even his associates had difficulty in restraining their laughter. And yet their chairman was a useful man to them, and the LL.D. after his name threw a sort of halo of respectability over the cause. Next to him sat a man who differed in appearance yet more strongly from the remainder of those present. He was a tall man, very carefully dressed, and with a military bearing. Captain Thornton had been an officer in the army, but had been put upon half-pay, and considered himself hardly used. He resembled the chairman, only in being inordinately and absurdly vain. His personal vanity it was which had urged him to take part in the present movement, and made him delight to march at the head even of a mob from St. Giles’s. He was one of those men who would fain be king, but would otherwise be content to act the part of king’s fool, as being the next most conspicuous personage. He loved being looked up to as a man of consequence by the mechanics and roughs with whom he was associated. It tickled his consuming vanity, when he was saluted in the streets with the cry of “Bravo, Thornton!” To obtain popularity, even among the lowest class, he would have done anything, short of disturbing the set of his coat or the arrangement of his hair. Had there been no other way of making himself conspicuous, he would have done it by wearing a feather in his hat, or painting his boots scarlet. Not the least gratification which Captain Thornton derived from his prominent position in the ranks of the Chartists was the belief that he was revenging himself upon the authorities for the manner in which they had treated him. He was a more dangerous man than the chairman, for although equally vain, he was not equally weak, and would have gone any lengths, even to deluging England with blood, if he could have increased the notoriety of his name by so doing.