Then chamberlains manœuvred the Liblabs into position at the foot of the throne steps. Jerry by common consent had been chosen spokesman; and the united intellect of the Fellowship had drawn up the address which he, with ostentatious calmness, began to read. The Pope's ringed hand lay on His knee: His left elbow rested on the crimson chair and the hand supported the keen unfathomable face. He had prepared His plans: but He alertly was listening, lest unforeseen necessity for alteration should arise. He was watching with half-shut eyes and wide-open mind for an opportunity. None came. His prevision had been singularly accurate. The Liblab Fellowship really had nothing to say to Him, beyond turgid sesquipedalian verbosity expressive of its own disinterestedness, and fulsome adulation calculated (according to the Fellowshippers' lights) to tickle the conceit of any average man. It would have been funny, if it had not been terribly tiresome: impertinent, if it had not been pitiable. Sant's tongue clacked on his drying palate. To himself, his voice sounded quite strange in that atmosphere of splendid colour and fragrant odour. Mrs. Crowe quivered; and wondered. The others were in a torpor. No one listened to the reader, except the Pope. The curia rustled and whispered, exchanging jewelled snuff-boxes. The guards resembled tinted statues tipped with steel. "We have the honour to remain, in the cause of humanity," concluded Jerry Sant, reciting the common-place names of the signatories, "On behalf of the Liblab Fellowship." He refolded the foolscap sheets, and drew them through his fingers, looking as though he were about to hand them with a flourish to the Pope. A frilled black-velvet flunkey took them from him, gave them to a purple prelate, who passed them to a vermilion cardinal, who kneeled and presented them. The stately Cardinal Van Kristen moved from the side presenting a second manuscript. Hadrian unfolded it and began to read His reply. It was courteous and concise, distant and independent, simply an allocution on the distinction necessary to be drawn between Demagogues and Demos, the worthiness of the latter, the doubtfulness of the former. At the end there was a silence. Chamberlains discreetly made it known to the Fellowshippers that homage might be rendered by any who desired to render it; and gave instructions as to the customary manner. Twelve of the demagogues preferred a non-committal pose, having fear of the snorts of the _Salpinx_; and, of these, two found it convenient to glare uncompromisingly, letting it be seen that they regarded their host as the Man of Sin. But eight approached the throne. Five of them bowed, as over the counter: one kneeled on one knee and read his maker's name in his hat: Sant held his own elbows and looked along his nose; and Mrs. Crowe laid her lips on the cross gold-embroidered on the Pontiff's crimson shoe. That was all. These people were bewildered,