"I do beg and pray of the committee as you'll let me be Moses, souls! I'm old enough--up home fourscore to a week--just the man's age when he denied and defied King Pharaoh. An' my beard's a regular Moses beard; an' I'm accounted wise to the eye, so long as I keep my mouth shut. 'Twould be the first and last act of note that ever I should do, an' a very fine thing to be handed down in my favour for my grandchildren to remember." There was an awkward silence. Mr. Prout and the schoolmaster whispered aside, Mr. Norseman and Mr. Taverner shook their heads. "Let him--let the old blid do it," said John Prout under his breath. "Might be a gracious act. He couldn't mar it, if he said nought." Mr. Spry also whispered into the chairman's ear. "Does he bear himself straight enough in the back? That's my fear. And the stone tables--he'd droop to the ground under them." Mr. Huggins pleaded again. "I'd wear the holy horns on my brow and everything; and many a married man would rather not. But 'tis nought to me." "I had thought to write speeches in character for the emblematical people, and perhaps some verses," said Churchward; whereupon the face of the aged Huggins fell. "Don't ax me to say nought," he begged. "Even as 'tis, if I walk as Moses, I shall be sweating for fear under my sacred coat; and if I had to tell a speech, I should disgrace myself and the company without a doubt." "I'm against speeches altogether," declared Jarratt Weekes; "and so's Mr. Norseman here. We won't have no play-acting and no chattering of silly verses." Mr. Churchward glared at his foe, and Weekes glared back and poured out more beer. The chairman thought of certain rhymes already in his desk, and Mr. Spry, who knew of these rhymes, cast a timorous and sympathetic eye at his gloomy friend. "Schoolmaster's made some beautiful speeches, that nobody here could mend, for he's been so very good as to let me read them," he said. But the sense of the meeting was for a dumb show; Mr. Huggins had his way and became self-conscious and nervous from that moment. Like greater men, he won his ambition and lost his peace of mind for evermore. Sir Francis Drake, who brought water from Dartmoor to Plymouth, was suggested by the postmaster and agreed upon with enthusiasm; then Mr. Churchward proposed a Druid and Mr. Spry seconded, but Norseman protested. "No heathen--no heathen!" he said. "'Twould be a reproach and make us a byword. Let's have St. Petrock--him that our church be named after. He might travel side by side of Moses, and keep the show well within Christianity." "St. Petrock is good," declared Adam Churchward. "St. Petrock is a thought worthy of you, Norseman. Spry and I will consult our books about him. I second that, certainly." The drink was done, and Mr. Pearn, aware that his part in the debate had sunk to nothing, advanced an idea.