Walking home after this fifteen minutes of happiness, Erb found himself continuing the talk, and affecting that Rosalind was tripping along at his side: it was in these silent talks that he dared to call her “dear,” thereupon colouring so much that passers-by glanced at him curiously; plain-faced ladies went on gay with the thought that their features had the power to confuse a stranger. When, in these circumstances, he encountered men of the society they were sometimes greatly diverted, and cried, “’Ullo, Erb. Going over a speech, eh, Erb?” No doubt at this period of Erb’s popularity. His unselfish reticence in the Willow Walk affair, the commonsense he exhibited in one or two minor troubles, the increased polish of the spoken word: all these things increased the men’s respect. Also they knew that he worked for them day and night: he had not developed the swollen head of importance that in secretaries of other societies was nearly always a prominent feature. He organised a system of benefits on three scales, by which, if you paid in twopence a week, you received fifteen shillings a week in the case of unjust dismissal; twelve shillings a week for unjust suspension; and ten shillings a week for strike pay. He arranged with a pushful solicitor in Camberwell to give legal advice. He had written one or two articles concerning the society in weekly penny papers, and in these he had taken care not to obtrude his own name or his own work. Even Spanswick admitted now that Erb was turning out better than he had expected, but Spanswick’s views might have been brightened by the fact that Erb was organising a ticket benefit at the Surrey on Spanswick’s behalf: this not so much on account of any personal misfortune, but because Mrs. Spanswick, always a thoughtless, inconsiderate woman, had mistakenly chosen a time when Spanswick was temporarily suspended from duty for insobriety, to present him with twin babies. “Three,” grumbled Spanswick, “three, I could have understood. There’d been a bit of money about three. But two—” Spanswick’s friends had promised to rally round him, a feat they performed in theory only, and Erb had to go elsewhere to find buyers of the tickets. Lady Frances had taken a box—a fact which modified and chastened Spanswick’s very extreme views in regard to what he usually called the slave-owning upper classes. Lady Frances had done a kinder thing than this. On one of her visits to Bermondsey she had met Louisa, white-faced and twitching as a result of her work, had gone to Louisa’s employer, and had made him shake in his very shoes by denouncing him and all his works, had demanded for Louisa a fortnight’s holiday, which the employer, anxious enough to conciliate this emphatic young titled person, and fearful of being sent to the Tower, at once conceded; sent Louisa, with sister Alice for company, away to the country house at Penshurst where the better side of Alice’s nature detached itself, and