Mr. Bobbe snarled rather than tittered. “He’s an insignificant toadying little cheese-worm. That’s what he is, a toadying little _cheese-worm_. And you won’t be much better, my lad, if you let yourself drift with these people. You’ll go to pieces, you’ll just go _com-plete-ly_ to pieces. But humanity’s rotten. It’s all rotten. It stinks. It’s worm-eaten. Look at those mingy fellows prancing round those women on the tips of their toes. Cold-hearted, ****-********* mingy sneaks! Look at the women, pining for a bit o’ real warm-hearted man’s love, and what do they get? Mingy cold-hearted ********! I know ’em, I know ’em. Curse the mingy lot of ’em. But it won’t last long, it can’t. The workers won’t stand it. There’ll be a revolution and a bloody one, and soon too. Mingy sons of spats and eye-glasses!” George was amazed and embarrassed by this outburst. He did, indeed, feel repelled by most of the gathering, particularly by persons like Mr. Robert Jeames, the Poets’ Friend, who made anthologies of all the worst authors, wore a monocle and spats, and lisped through a wet tooth. But after all Mr. Jeames was harmless and quite amiable. One might not agree with his taste; one might not feel attracted by him, or indeed by most of the people present. But there was certainly a wide difference between such a feeling and “mingy sneaks” and “cheese-worms.” Moreover, George was a little offended by Mr. Bobbe’s proletarian vocabulary, while he failed to see exactly why the sexual frigidity of a few men in dinner jackets should cause the workers to rise in bloody revolution. “I shouldn’t think the workers care a hoot. If it’s as you say, the women are more likely to join the suffragettes.” “Faugh!” said Mr. Bobbe, “puh! Suffragettes? Take them away. They smell. They’re unclean. They’re obscene. Women and votes! It’s the last stage of decomposition of the mingy world. When the women start to get power, it’s the end. It means the men are done for, mingy cold-hearted sneaks. Once let the women in, and nothing can save the world. Socialism, perhaps, and a genuine out-reaching of the inward unconscious Male-life to the dark Womb-life in Woman. But no, they’re not worthy of it. Let ’em go. You’ll see, my lad, you’ll see. Within five years there’ll be a...” “Oh, Mr. Bobbe,” said Mrs. Shobbe’s voice, and a timid little greyish lady, all in grey and silver, appeared, gentle and fluttering, beside them, like a large gentle grey moth. “Oh, Mr. Bobbe, do forgive me for interrupting your _interesting_ conversation. Lady Carter is _so_ anxious to meet you and admires you so much. I’m sure you’ll like her and her two daughters—such _beautiful_ girls.” George watched Mr. Bobbe as he bowed servilely to Lady Carter and entered into an animated conversation with that living rung in the social ladder. He watched the scene for several minutes, and was just thinking of leaving when Mr. Waldo Tubbe came near him.