"At one of my meetings near the dock gates, a fellow shouted: 'Burn the docks; break in and burn the docks!' He interrupted me two or three times with that cry. The crowd was sullen. It had n't got its sixpence yet. I must stop the roaring fellow, or his mates might get out of control. I borrowed a box of matches from the nearest man. 'Catch!' I cried to the noisy chap. He caught it as I flung it over the heads of the crowd. 'Now, then,' I called to him, 'if you are crazy, if you don't care what happens to all these men and their wives and children, and if you want to ruin this strike, go, fire the docks!' But the man did n't move. I waited, but still he did n't move. Then I said: 'Your hand has n't the courage of your mouth. Take the matches from him, men, hand 'em back to me. Make way for him. He 's shown that he 's a braggin' coward. Out with him!' He skulked away, hooted by the crowd. I suppose that was the {234} origin of the yarn that I was inciting the mob to burn the docks." "That's the way history is written, John Burns. Have you found your dockers suspicious regarding you?" Meredith put the question with a naïve air. "Of course. Men of their kind are always suspicious, until they know you. Why should n't they be? Whoever went among 'em before those days with any other purpose than to get the best of 'em?" "They suspected your decent clothes," said I. Burns laughed. "One morning I appeared in a new suit of blue serge like this, and a new straw hat, like that. 'Where'd you get 'em, Burns?' one man shouted. 'He 's makin' more 'n sixpence out o' us,' yelled another. Then I had to explain, anyhow, I did explain, that Madame Tussaud's had given me a new suit, so that they could put my old one on a wax figure of me. Tussaud's wanted my old hat, but my wife would n't part with that. She wanted it as a trophy."