“I’ve pointed out to ’em that they’ve blundered all along. That matter of the cheque, for instance—it’s proved that it’s never been cashed and, therefore, as I say, the money could never have come into your pocket. On the top of that,” said Spanswick, with something like indignation, “they go and select a bounder like old Doubleday. Why I could see what the man was like from the very start. I took his measure the first time I came across him. A talkative, interfering, muddle-headed gas-bag—I told some of ’em that it was a wonder they got men to take the trouble to lead them at all.” “It _is_ a wonder!” “And here they are now,” said Spanswick, rising to go and join in the deliberations of the next room, “here they are now down on their ’ands and knees without a single penny in the cash-box, worse off than they’ve ever been ever since the Society started, and not one amongst ’em capable of taking what you may call the reins of government in hand. It all comes,” concluded Spanswick, tapping at his nose with his forefinger, “it all comes through people not listening to the advice of the few of us,” here he struck his waistcoat impressively, “the few of us, either me and you, that know.” Through the partition Erb could hear the voice of the Labour member. Impossible to distinguish the words, but clearly there was reproof in the tones at first; this gave place later to the quieter key of counsel. The men who had hitherto been silent began to applaud; fists struck the table with approval, and presently there came the sound of emphatic cheering that had often made Erb warm with pleasure. “You’re wanted, old man,” said Payne, opening the door importantly. “Foller me into the next room, will you?” The old scent of gas and cheap tobacco and corduroys. The old faces looking round as he entered, elbows resting on the table, some of the men with tumblers before them, others, wearing the stern look of sobriety, had been making notes of the speech to which they had just listened. Circular stains on the long wooden T-shaped tables; the impaled advertisements on the wall awry as though affected by the perfumes coming up from the bar downstairs. The dulled mirrors at the end reflected the room mistily with its frame protected eternally by tissue paper. The barman waiting for orders at the doorway gave Erb a tap of encouragement as he went in. “Bravo! vo! vo! vo!” murmured the room. “Order! order!” said the Chairman. “I call on our old and trusted friend—I forget his blessed name—from Paddington Parcels, at any rate, to address the meeting.” The Paddington Parcels member cleared his throat and rose. He had been one of the first to go over, and this he frankly admitted. “Gives me all the more title,” said Paddington Parcels determinedly, “to undertake what I’m undertaking of now.”