"Couldn't we just go and look in? I've got plenty of time, now I know
exactly how I stand."
She halted, and glanced across the road. He could only agree to the
proposition. For himself, a peculiar sense of delicacy would have made
it impossible for him to intrude his prosperity upon the deliberations
of starving artisans on strike and stricken; and he wondered what the
potters might think or say about the invasion by a woman. But he had to
traverse the street with her and enter, and he had to do so with an air
of masculine protectiveness. The urchins stood apart to let them in.
Snaggs', dimly lit by a few glazed apertures in the roof, was nearly
crammed by men who sat on the low benches and leaned standing against
the sidewalls. In the small and tawdry proscenium, behind a worn
picture of the Bay of Naples, were silhouetted the figures of the men's
leader and of several other officials. The leader was speaking in a
quiet, mild voice, the other officials were seated on Windsor chairs.
The smell of the place was nauseating, and yet the atmosphere was
bitingly cold. The warm-wrapped visitors could see rows and rows of
discoloured backs and elbows, and caps, and stringy kerchiefs. They
could almost feel the contraction of thousands of muscles in an
involuntary effort to squeeze out the chill from all these bodies; not a
score of overcoats could be discerned in the whole theatre, and many of
the jackets were thin and ragged; but the officials had overcoats. And
the visitors could almost see, as it were in rays, the intense fixed
glances darting from every part of the interior, and piercing the
upright figure in the centre of the stage.
"Some method of compromise," the leader was saying in his persuasive
tones.
A young man sprang up furiously from the middle benches.
"To hell wi' compromise!" he shouted in a tigerish passion. "Haven't us
had forty pound from Ameriky?"
"Order! Order!" some protested fiercely. But one voice cried: "Pitch
the bastard awt, neck and crop!"
Hands clawed at the interrupter and dragged him with extreme violence to
the level of the bench, where he muttered like a dying volcano. Angry
growls shot up here and there, snappish, menacing, and bestial.
"It is quite true," said the leader soothingly, "that our comrades at
Trenton have collected forty pounds for us. But forty pounds would
scarcely pay for a loaf of bread for one man in every ten on strike."
There was more interruption. The dangerous growls continued in running
explosions along the benches. The leader, ignoring them, turned to
consult with his neighbour, and then faced his audience and called out
more loudly--
"The business of the meeting is at an end."
The entire multitude jumped up, and there was stretching of arms and
stamping of feet. The men nearest to the door now perceived Edwin and
Hilda, who moved backwards as before a flood. Edwin seized Hilda's arm
to hasten her.
"Lads," bawled an old man's voice from near the stage, "Let's sing `Rock
of Ages.'"
A frowning and hirsute fellow near the door, with the veins prominent on
his red forehead, shouted hoarsely, "`Rock of Ages' be buggered!" and
shifting his hands into his pockets he plunged for the street, head
foremost and chin sticking out murderously. Edwin and Hilda escaped at
speed and recrossed the road. The crowd came surging out of the narrow
neck of the building and spread over the pavements like a sinister
liquid. But from within the building came the lusty song of "Rock of
Ages."
"It's terrible!" Hilda murmured, after a silence. "Just to see them is
enough. I shall never forget what you said."
"What was that?" he inquired. He knew what it was, but he wished to
prolong the taste of her appreciation.
"That you've only got to see the poor things to know they're in the
right! Oh! I've lost my handkerchief, unless I've left it in your
shop. It must have dropped out of my muff."
------------------------------------------------------------------------