“_Now_,” remarked Erb elatedly, “_now_ you’re talking.” CHAPTER VI THE particular blend of trouble which Willow Walk was occupied in brewing proved highly attractive to Erb, and one that gave to all the men concerned a taste of the joys that must have come in the French Revolution. A few impetuous young spirits who had been brooding on grievances since the days when they were van boys were responsible. Erb recognised that here was the first opportunity of justifying his appointment. Warned, however, by the example of other organisers within memory, who had sometimes in similar experiments shown a tendency to excess, Erb took care. He wrote letters to the General Manager, letters for which he received a printed form of acknowledgment and no other, he wrote to the Directors, and received a brief reply to the effect that they could not recognise Mr. Herbert Barnes in the matter, and that the grievances of the staff concerned only the staff and themselves; the men were bitterly annoyed at this, but Erb, because he had anticipated the reply, showed no concern. He worked from dawn near to dawn again, sending letters to members of Parliament, going round to the depots of other railways, attending meetings, and in many ways devoting himself to the work of what he called directing public opinion. In point of fact, he had first to create it. For a good fortnight he gave up everything to devote himself to this one object, gave up everything but his lessons in Camberwell. One of the halfpenny evening papers said, amongst other things, “Mr. Herbert Barnes made an impassioned but logical and excellently delivered speech.” Erb knew the deplorable looking man with a silk hat of the early seventies who had reported this, but that did not prevent him from being highly gratified on seeing the words in print; Louisa spent eighteenpence on a well-bound manuscript book, and in it commenced to paste these notices. The point at issue being that the men demanded better payment of overtime, Erb found here a subject that lent itself to oratorical argument; the story of the man who was so seldom at home that one Sunday his little girl asked the other parent, “Mother, who’s this strange man?” never failed to prove effective, and Erb felt justified in leaving out the fact that the carman in question was one accustomed, when his work finished at night, to go straight from the stables to a house in Old Kent Road, where he usually remained until the potman cried “Time! gentlemen, time!”