"I've done it," Holderness declared. "I've been through it all. Hang it all, do you forget that I'm the editor of a Socialist magazine? No! feel it you must, but don't let it upset your mental balance. Don't lose your values!" Macheson left his friend in a saner frame of mind. His words came back to him that night as he watched the little stream of people file out from the bare white-washed building, with its rows of cheap cane chairs. It was so true! To give way to despair was simply to indulge in a sentimental debauch. Yet in a sense he had never felt so completely the pitiful ineffectiveness of his task. How could he preach the Christian morality, expound the Christian doctrines, to a people whose very sufferings, whose constant agony, was a hideous and glaring proof that by the greater part of the world those doctrines were ignored! A man was shown into his room afterwards, as he was putting on his overcoat. Almost with relief Macheson saw that he at least had no pitiful tale to tell. He was a small dapper man, well dressed, and spoke with a slight American accent. "Mr. Macheson," he said, "I'm taking the liberty of introducing myself. Peter Drayton my name is, never mind my profession. It wouldn't interest you." Macheson nodded. "What can I do for you?" he asked, with some curiosity. "Say, I've been very much interested in these talks of yours to the people," Mr. Drayton remarked. "But it's occurred to me that you're on the wrong end of the stick. That's why I'm here. You're saying the right things, and you've got the knack of saying them so that people have just got to listen, but you're saying them to the wrong crowd." "I don't understand," Macheson was forced to confess. "Well, I reckon it's simple enough," Drayton answered. "These people here don't need to have their own misery thrust down their throats, even while you're trying to show them how to bear it. It's the parties who are responsible for it all that you want to go for. See what I mean?" "I think so," Macheson admitted, "but----" "Look here," Drayton interrupted, "you're a man of common sense, and you know that life's more or less a stand-up fight. Those that are licked live here in Whitechapel--if you can call it living--and those who win get to Belgravia! It's a pitiless sort of affair this fight, but there it is. Now which of the two do you think need preaching to, these people, or the people who are responsible for them? You've started a mission in Whitechapel--it would have been more logical, if there's a word of truth in your religion, to have started it in Mayfair." Macheson laughed. "They wouldn't listen to me," he declared. "I'd see to that," Drayton answered quickly. "It's my business. I want you to give a course of--well, we'd call them lectures, in the West End. You can say what you like. You can pitch into 'em as hot as Hell! I'll guarantee you a crowded audience every time."