It became certain at once that Payne was not to give an epoch-making speech. Confused perhaps by the footlights, uncertain of the attitude of this great crowded theatre, Payne’s memory ran its head against a brick wall and stayed there: he made three repetitions of one sentence, and then, having reversed the positions of the tumbler and the decanter, started afresh, the audience encouraging him by cries of “Fetch him out, Towser, fetch him out,” as though Mr. Payne were an unwilling dog, but the same brick wall stood in his way, and, concluding weakly with the remark, “Well, you all know what I mean,” he called upon Erb, and sat down glancing nervously across to the pit stalls, where was Mrs. Payne, her head shaking desolately, her lips moving with unspoken words of derision. “I’m going to take five minutes,” said Erb, in his distinct and deliberate way. He took out his watch and laid it on the table. “Even if I’m in the middle of a sentence when that time is up, I promise I’ll go down like a shot. I suppose you know the story of the man who—” Good temper smiled and laughed from the front row of the pit stalls and up to the very topmost row of the gallery at Erb’s anecdote, and, hoping for another story, they sat forward and listened. He knew that he held them now, knew they would cheer anything he liked to say, providing he said it with enough of emphasis. He went on quickly that this advantage might not be lost, pounding the palm of one hand with the fist of the other, so that the dullest might know by this gesture when a point was intended; spoke of the good feeling that was aroused by the presence of a fellow-man’s misfortune; mentioned the work of his own society, urged that so long as this feeling of comradeship existed, so long would their condition improve, not perhaps by a leap or a bound, but by steady, cautious, and gradual progression. Up in the circle his young elocution teacher nodded approvingly, flushing with pride at her pupil’s careful enunciation, giving a start of pain at a superfluous aspirate that cleaved the air. “He can talk,” admitted a man behind her. “If I’d had the gift of the gab,” said the man’s neighbour, “I could have made a fortune.” Erb stepped out near to the footlights and gave his peroration in an impassioned manner that had the useful note of sincerity. Those in the theatre, who were sympathisers, rose and cheered like a hurricane; the rest, not to be left out of a gratifying show of emotion, joined in, and Spanswick, the hero of the evening, as he rose from his chair to say a few words, might have been a leading politician, a general who had rescued his country from difficulties, or an exceptionally popular member of the Royal Family, instead of a railway carman of third-rate excellence with a notable wife.