The bowler-hatted men, who had spoken, seemed bored now with the proceedings, and tried to make out the exact time by the clock on the great biscuit factory; unable to do this, they appealed to Erb, who, heated with his oratorical efforts, and gratified to notice that the tall young woman had limped away directly that he had finished, produced a smart silver watch and gave the required information. They spoke in an undertone of the evening’s engagements: one proud man was to turn on the gas, as he cheerfully expressed it, at Victoria Park in the afternoon, another had had a long talk with a member of Parliament, and the member had shaken hands with him, “Quite ’omely and affable”; they all presented to the crowd a very serious and thoughtful and statesmanlike appearance as they whispered to each other. Flakes of the crowd began to fall away. The last speaker finished, hoarse and panting. “Whose turn is it to carry the chair?” “Erb’s!” said the others, quickly. “But I thought—” he began. “You thought wrong,” said the others. “Besides you’re going straight ’ome.” They walked across the grass to the gates near the station, where men and children, and men with babies perched on their shoulders, were making way back to the homes from which they had been temporarily expelled in order to give wives and mothers opportunity for concentrating minds on the preparation for dinner. “No use trying to blister you for ’alf a pint, Erb?” “Waste of time,” said Erb. “What d’you do with all your money?” “I don’t find no difficulty,” he replied, “in getting rid of it. Any spare cash goes in books. I’ve got a reg’lar little library at ’ome. John Stuart Mill and Professor Wallace and Robert Owen, and goodness knows what all.” “The only reely sensible thing you’ve done, Erb,” remarked one, “is not getting married.” “That’s one of ’em,” he admitted. “You don’t know what it is to be always buying boots for the kiddies.” “Don’t want.” “You single men get it all your own way. Same time, it’s a selfish life in my opinion. You don’t live for the sake of anybody.” “I live for the sake of a good many people,” said Erb, dodging into the road to evade a square of girls carrying hymn books, and returning with his chair to the pavement. “What I’m anxious to do is to see the world better and brighter, to organise either by word of mouth or otherwise—” “Old man!” protested the others indignantly, “give us a rest. You ain’t in the park now.” He gave up the wooden chair to one of the men, who took it inside the passage of a house in Upper Grange Road. The others stepped across to a public-house; he nodded and went on. “Won’t change your mind and ’ave one, Erb?” “My mind,” he called back, “is the one thing I never ’ardly change.”