Making abundant apologies, he asked his neighbours to favour him by sitting a little nearer to each other, and so contrive to leave a morsel of vacant space at the edge of the bench.
Phoebe, making room under protest, began to whisper again. "What does she mean by calling you Jervy? She looks like a beggar. Tell her your name is Jervis."
The reply she received did not encourage her to say more. "Hold your tongue; I have reasons for being civil to her--you be civil too."
He turned to Mrs. Sowler, with the readiest submission to circumstances. Under the surface of his showy looks and his vulgar facility of manner, there lay hidden a substance of callous villainy and impenetrable cunning. He had in him the materials out of which the clever murderers are made, who baffle the police. If he could have done it with impunity, he would have destroyed without remorse the squalid old creature who sat by him, and who knew enough of his past career in England to send him to penal servitude for life. As it was, he spoke to her with a spurious condescension and good humour. "Why, it must be ten years, Mrs. Sowler, since I last saw you! What have you been doing?"
The woman frowned at him as she answered. "Can't you look at me, and see? Starving!" She eyed his gaudy watch and chain greedily. "Money don't seem to be scarce with you. Have you made your fortune in America?"
He laid his hand on her arm, and pressed it warningly. "Hush!" he said, under his breath. "We'll talk about that, after the lecture." His bright shifty black eyes turned furtively towards Phoebe--and Mrs. Sowler noticed it. The girl's savings in service had paid for his jewelry and his fine clothes. She silently resented his rudeness in telling her to "hold her tongue"; sitting, sullen, with her impudent little nose in the air. Jervy tried to include her indirectly in his conversation with his shabby old friend. "This young lady," he said, "knows Mr. Goldenheart. She feels sure he'll break down; and we've come here to see the fun. I don't hold with Socialism myself--I am for, what my favourite newspaper calls, the Altar and the Throne. In short, my politics are Conservative."
"Your politics are in your girl's pocket," muttered Mrs. Sowler. "How long will her money last?"
Jervy turned a deaf ear to the interruption. "And what has brought you here?" he went on, in his most ingratiating way. "Did you see the advertisement in the papers?"
Mrs. Sowler answered loud enough to be heard above the hum of talking in the sixpenny places. "I was having a drop of gin, and I saw the paper at the public-house. I'm one of the discontented poor. I hate rich people; and I'm ready to pay my sixpence to hear them abused."
"Hear, hear!" said a man near, who looked like a shoemaker.
"I hope he'll give it to the aristocracy," added one of the shoemaker's neighbours, apparently a groom out of place.
"I'm sick of the aristocracy," cried a woman with a fiery face and a crushed bonnet. "It's them as swallows up the money. What business have they with their palaces and their parks, when my husband's out of work, and my children hungry at home?"
The acquiescent shoemaker listened with admiration. "Very well put," he said; "very well put."
These expressions of popular feeling reached the respectable ears of Mr. Farnaby. "Do you hear those wretches?" he said to his wife.
Mrs. Farnaby seized the welcome opportunity of irritating him. "Poor things!" she answered. "In their place, we should talk as they do."
"You had better go into the reserved seats," rejoined her husband, turning from her with a look of disgust. "There's plenty of room. Why do you stop here?"
"I couldn't think of leaving you, my dear! How did you like my American friend?"
"I am astonished at your taking the liberty of introducing him to me. You knew perfectly well that I was here incognito. What do I care about a wandering American?"
Mrs. Farnaby persisted as maliciously as ever. "Ah, but you see, I like him. The wandering American is my ally."
"Your ally! What do you mean?"
"Good heavens, how dull you are! don't you know that I object to my niece's marriage engagement? I was quite delighted when I heard of this lecture, because it's an obstacle in the way. It disgusts Regina, and it disgusts You--and my dear American is the man who first brought it about. Hush! here's Amelius. How well he looks! So graceful and so gentlemanlike," cried Mrs. Farnaby, signalling with her handkerchief to show Amelius their position in the hall. "I declare I'm ready to become a Socialist before he opens his lips!"
The personal appearance of Amelius took the audience completely by surprise. A man who is young and handsome is not the order of man who is habitually associated in the popular mind with the idea of a lecture. After a moment of silence, there was a spontaneous burst of applause. It was renewed when Amelius, first placing on his table a little book, announced his intention of delivering the lecture extempore. The absence of the inevitable manuscript was in itself an act of mercy that cheered the public at starting.
The orator of the evening began.
"Ladies and gentlemen, thoughtful people accustomed to watch the signs of the times in this country, and among the other nations of Europe, are (so far as I know) agreed in the conclusion, that serious changes are likely to take place in present forms of government, and in existing systems of society, before the century in which we live has reached its end. In plain words, the next revolution is not so unlikely, and not so far off, as it pleases the higher and wealthier classes among European populations to suppose. I am one of those who believe that the coming convulsion will take the form, this time, of a social revolution, and that the man at the head of it will not be a military or a political man--but a Great Citizen, sprung from the people, and devoted heart and soul to the people's cause. Within the limits assigned to me to-night, it is impossible that I should speak to you of government and society among other nations, even if I possessed the necessary knowledge and experience to venture on so vast a subject. All that I can now attempt to do is (first) to point out some of the causes which are paving the way for a coming change in the social and political condition of this country; and (secondly) to satisfy you that the only trustworthy remedy for existing abuses is to be found in the system which Christian Socialism extracts from this little book on my table--the book which you all know under the name of The New Testament. Before, however, I enter on my task, I feel it a duty to say one preliminary word on the subject of my claim to address you, such as it is. I am most unwilling to speak of myself--but my position here forces me to do so. I am a stranger to all of you; and I am a very young man. Let me tell you, then, briefly, what my life has been, and where I have been brought up--and then decide for yourselves whether it is worth your while to favour me with your attention, or not."
"A very good opening," remarked the shoemaker.