The meeting, it seemed, had begun. Edwin saw members of the crowd scattering in all directions. A cry of “stones!” was raised, and he saw that men, women, and children were streaming towards an area of slum that was being dismantled to make room for some monument of municipal grandeur, returning with caps and hands and aprons full of stones and broken brick. Soon the air was full of flying missiles, and though the crash of glass could not be heard, ragged holes were torn in the frosted glass of the town-hall windows. A body of police, tremendous strapping fellows, marched by, followed by impotent jeers and hooting, and planted themselves in front of all the doors with truncheons drawn. Their presence seemed to enrage the crowd, inflaming that suppressed hate of the forces of order that slumbers in most men’s hearts. The volleys of stones increased as the supplies of ammunition grew more plentiful. A little dark man with a red tie monotonously shouting the words: “Free speech!” was caught up, and, as it seemed to Edwin, trampled to death. Somewhere in the middle of the struggling masses people began to sing the revivalist hymn: “Shall we gather at the river?” It reached Edwin in an immense and gathering volume, with words adapted for the occasion:— “Shall we gather at the fountain, The beautiful, the beautiful, the fountain? We’ll drown Lloyd George in the fountain. And he won’t come here any more.” The very volume of sound was impressive and inspiring. Suddenly the crowd was parted by the arrival of a new body. It was a phalanx of university students who had dragged an immense beam of oak from the debris of the dismantled slum and were hurling it forward as a battering ram against one of the principal doors. Edwin could see amongst them the towering shoulders of W.G., and the mouth of the elder Wade, the hero of the hansom cab, wide open and yelling. It seemed as though the savagery of the crowd had reached its height: they tore a way through it, trampling the fallen as they went. And then the police, who had been held in reserve, charged at right angles to them, hitting out right and left with their loaded batons. The less courageous part of the crowd tried to scatter. The wave of a stampede spread outwards till it reached the edge on which Edwin was standing. He was thrown violently from his feet into the chest of a stranger, who shouted, “Hallo, Ingleby—” It was Matthew Boyce. “I think we’d better get out of this,” he said. The words seemed to pull Edwin back into sanity. Together they forced their way into a street that was empty but for a stream of people hurrying to the square with stones. They stood panting in the quiet. “God . . . what animals men are!” said Boyce. “I suppose it was something like this a hundred years ago, when they burned Priestley’s house.” “Yes, it’s pretty rotten,” said Edwin, “but didn’t you feel you wanted to join in it?”