Needless to say, the staff at our West-End Branch was deeply excited at the turn of affairs, and Mr. Bright seemed to think the problem the most serious that had arisen in politics for fifty years. He was not, however, entirely on the side of the masses, but felt rather doubtful of their leaders were guiding them aright. Mr. Walter never found much time to devote to politics, though a sound Liberal at heart; but what interested him was the artistic and dramatic aspect of Trafalgar Square when the horny-handed masses swept through it. As for Mr. Bewes, he went on eating his daily chop as though we were not on the edge of a volcano. Of course, as a stern Roman Catholic he was bound to believe that all that happens is for the best. This enabled him to keep his nerve in a way that was a lesson to us. Mr. Harrison, our esteemed chief, was a Conservative, and he by no means believed that everything that happens is for the best. He heartily disliked the crowds in the Square and was always glad when the time came to close the office and pull down the iron shutters. The directors also, who dropped in as of yore to sign policies, took a very unfavourable view of the situation and spoke harshly of the proletariat. They had a theory that the leaders of the people ought to be hung for sedition, privy conspiracy, and other crimes; and the newly made lord, known as Corrievairacktown, said he would like to see the Guards called out to send the vermin back to their holes at the point of the bayonet. He was a very unbending man in the matter of Capital versus Labour, and seemed to think that soldiers was really the last word on every subject. Then, after a period of undoubted danger, there came the terrible day when Mr. John Burns felt it his duty to climb up between the Trafalgar Square lions and wave the republican flag of blood red above a sea of upturned faces. The air was dark and murky; Nature wept, so to speak, and heavy clouds hung low above the unnumbered thousands who listened with panting bosoms to the impassioned utterances of their leader. Like trumpet notes his fiery syllables rent the welkin, and there was a movement in the masses of the assembled hosts, like billows driven by the wind over the sea. Their white faces were as foam on the darkness of dirty waves.