The chairman--a spruce young gentleman--after straightening his eye-glasses, grasped with his left hand the old speaker's hammer, rapped upon the table with it, and spoke a few words. Gradually it grew more still. Then Dr. Felbeck stood up, resting upon the table with both hands--his head between his shoulders like a cat about to make a spring. Then, rising to his full height, and glancing several times at his audience--challenging, and certain of success--he began: "Comrades!" * * * * * The speech lasted an hour and a half. What he said accorded very well with that which Johannes had heard him say when they first met. The downtrodden proletarian must in the end gird himself against the oppressor--against the rotten civic society, against the gentry of the safety-box, who are supported by the soldiers, assisted by priests, and represented by the Crown. The people must become conscious of their power, for the people are the source of all wealth, and to the people belongs the future. If only the laborers would act in unison, they would be able to make the laws. They were by far the majority. They might compose the Parliament, command the military, possess the collective wealth. Then they could make better laws, and could take from the rich their unmerited privileges. Then would come a time of real liberty and fraternity. Thereupon Dr. Felbeck made an estimate of the number of guldens a minute that the King had to spend; adding the statement that whole families of laboring men must live for a week upon no more. He showed how many people must work hard, continually, to pay for all that festivity and magnificence. He showed in detail how the rich live, and what splendor was theirs; and he claimed that such beauty and pleasure were the right of each and all. And with tears in his voice, he told them how, with his meagre wages, the poor wage-earner must make both ends meet. He said the laborer must learn to hate his enemy, and not let himself be deluded by oily-tongued preachers of peace who were paid by the rich; for then he would surely remain in his misery. And yet, in the end, they must certainly have a share of the pleasure--they who had heretofore always come out of the little end of the horn. All that Dr. Felbeck said was listened to with avidity. The listeners grew more and more attentive, and the speaker more and more vehement. There were frequent outbursts of laughter from the audience, and the hall trembled with the stamping of feet and the clapping of hands. Sometimes there was cheering to the echo. And when the speaker ended--with a fiery, well-turned clause in which all were urged to join the International Social Democratic Labor-Party--Grand Army of Laborers--there followed such an uproar that Johannes lost all sense of sight and hearing. His duty done, the speaker sat down, yet he looked around with some anxiety at the succeeding speakers.