THE weeks had hurried rapidly, more rapidly than usual, for they were pressed with business. The trial at the Central Criminal Court was over, after a hearing that struck Erb as being surprisingly brief, in view of the importance of the case; immediately on the conclusion of the evidence, and the speeches of counsel, the Recorder, from his scarlet-cushioned seat, where he had a robed Alderman and a knee-breeched Under Sheriff for company, had fined him, courteously and pleasantly, the sum of fifty pounds, or in default two months’ imprisonment. The shortness of the trial rendered an organised demonstration of little value in that the men arrived outside the Old Bailey some three hours after the case had been disposed of. Now there is nothing more galling to the Londoner than to be disappointed in his anticipations of a show, and it had required all Erb’s tact and more than his usual amiability to appease them. Erb had expressed a desire to go to prison to purge the offence (a short purgatory in jail was no bad prelude to political life), but the men would not hear of this: they could not manage without him, he was indispensable, they must have someone to look after the society, there was none to take his place, and he had given up this idea with less of reluctance because a disquieting tone had come into the letters of Rosalind from Worthing. But, determined to do something heroic, he insisted that his household goods in Page’s Walk should be sold up, and a scene thus contrived that should attract public attention. Wherefore there was an auction room in New Kent Road, to which all the furniture (with the single exception of the bedding) had been removed “For Convenience of Sale,” and here were as many of the railway carmen of London as could spare themselves conveniently from their duties, and here also were a few alert-eyed youths with note books and sharpened pencils eager to record some incident so amusing that not even a sub-editor’s pencil should venture to delete. A fusty smell of cocoanut wrappings in the long room, bran new furniture gave an odour of polish, retained and preserved because there was no ventilation except that afforded by the entrance from the street; a good-tempered auctioneer at the end of the room, high up and leaning on a rostrum, with a flaring, whistling, naked gas jet that compelled attention, because every now and then it exhibited a humorous desire to singe the top of the auctioneer’s shining silk hat. Erb stood by the wall, rather proud of being in the position of a martyr, his men formed a body-guard around him. Close up by the auctioneer stood half a dozen decrepit old men, the _habitués_ of the place, ready to snatch up a bargain, to become the intermediaries between buyers and auctioneer, to knock out a sale, or, in short, to do anything and everything except serious labour.