Meanwhile, the tension had become too much for some burly working-men in the public gallery. They could be heard blubbering. When you looked up you saw them mopping their grimy faces with red-spotted handkerchiefs or the ends of their scarfs. These men, with many of their mates, had crowded into the Council Chamber on their way home from the engineering yards and railway goods sidings in Millwall and from all the neighbouring docks. Those who could not get inside formed a dense crowd in the streets below. As the news was brought out from time to time, how two ballots had been taken and the votes were still equal, a silence strange and solemn fell upon the massed crowds surging round the Municipal Buildings in the lamp-lighted streets. Soon the silence gave way to a roar of working-men's voices. "Crooks has got it!" "Our Will's made Mayor!" "God bless the Mayor!" Among that rough-jacketed company could be seen men falling on each other's necks. And as they streamed homeward in all directions the streets of Poplar echoed with the cry that lingered far into the night, "Will Crooks is Mayor!" He was the first Labour Mayor in London. As such he did not make the mistake of trying to fill the office like the ordinary middle-class man. He faced all the world essentially as a working-man Mayor. He showed how well a workman can carry out the administrative and ceremonial duties inseparable from the office. In doing that he dispelled for ever the old illusion that only men of means can become mayors. "What d'yer think?" he overheard a tradesman's wife ask another in disgust. "They've made that common fellow Crooks Mayor! And he no better than a working-man." "Quite right, madam," he interposed, raising his hat as she turned round, crimson, and recognised him. "No better than a working-man!" It was evident, too, that at first certain of the other metropolitan mayors thought him a common fellow, far beneath their notice. The first occasion that saw him in their midst was a conference of mayors at the Mansion House. It was convened by the Lord Mayor to consider arrangements for the Coronation Dinner to the Poor. Crooks listened for an hour to all kinds of suggestions put forward by men who knew little about the poor before rising at last to make a proposal of his own. The instant he rose there was a howl of disapproval. "Sit down--sit down!" "Who are you?" "We want none of your opinions." "Sit down--sit down!" The wrath of some of these funny little functionaries at the idea of a Labour man daring to address them was something he laughed at for a long time after. Several of them had lost their heads entirely at being invited to discuss a matter which so closely concerned the King and Queen. The very presence of a Labour man at such an august gathering was felt to be an insult.