Murmurs of approval and a little laughter from the audience, with here and there a _sotto-voce_ remark: "Bartholomew knows what he's about." "Now," pursued Mr. Bartholomew, "that's what I call constitutional. I don't mean to say that I ain't open to conviction myself; but when a man knows he's right, all that he's got to do is to go ahead--always in a constitutional way. Now there's the government--it's right, or it's wrong. If it's right, let it remain as it is; if it's wrong, it's got to be altered." "It's wrong, that's what it is," blurted out a working-man. "Not so fast, not so fast," said Mr. Bartholomew; "saying it's wrong don't make it so. We've got to find it out by argument and open minds, constitutionally, and that ain't a thing for to-night; and it ain't a thing that can be settled in a day, or a week, or a month, or a year. It'll take time, because--I don't mind confessing to you my opinion--that what's got to be done is no trifling matter; it's a mighty matter, mates, with kings and queens, and princes and princesses, and prime-ministers and chancellors of the exchequer, all mixed up in it. Do you know what I call those ladies and gentlemen, mates? I call them the frillings. The solid mass, the real body, is here." He gave the table a great thump with his fist. "Bravo, Bartholomew!" from many voices. "We've got a man at the head of us!" The excitement was beginning to rise. "You ain't got anybody at the head of you. All that sort of thing--forming ourselves into an institution, election of officers, and so on--has got to be done. We're just now having a little friendly chat before dinner. Yes, mates, we are the solid body of the country, and it has struck me for a long time past that the time has come for us to make ourselves known and heard. I won't quite say that it's a matter of mathematics, but it is a matter of numbers. Every man has two arms and two legs--except those that's got wooden ones--a head to think, and often think wrongly, mind you, a heart to love, and a stomach to fill, which, if you don't fill, plays the very devil with you. There's something in Coriolanus--" "Where's that?" cried one, interrupting the other. "'Where's that,' Bill?" echoed Mr. Bartholomew. "It ain't a 'where' at all; it's a who. Coriolanus was a great general; and when the institution is formed, which we have met to-night to form, I hope you'll read about him in William Shakespeare; for what we're going to have in that institution, besides other things that's got to be settled, is books, mates." "Hear, hear." "And papers." "Hear, hear." "A little idea just comes to my mind. There's a good number of men in the world pretty much like boxes, shut up tight, locked up tighter. We're going to open those boxes; we're going to unlock 'em; we're goin' to let panes of glass into 'em, that the light can be seen through." "Bravo! bravo! bravo!" from all parts of the room.