He cries
vanity upon all these detailed schemes of social reconstruction. Are
we ready for it? he wails. Could we bear it, if they granted it to
us? It is all good and right, but hadn't we better first make
ourselves worthy of such freedom? He begins a terrible arraignment
of the People,--then, of a sudden, his voice has ceased. You could
hear a pin drop. It is seen that the man has fallen to the ground;
there arises a low moaning; people press about him.
They carry him into the coffee-shop. It was a fit. In five minutes
he is restored, but does not come back to finish his speech.
There is an interval of disorder. But surely we are not going to let
the meeting end in this way. The chairman calls for the next
speaker, and he stands forth in the person of a rather smug little
shopkeeper, who declares that he knows of no single particular in
which the working class needs correction. The speech undeniably
falls fiat. Will no one restore the tone of the meeting?
Mr. Kitshaw is the man! Now we shall have broad grins. Mr. Kitshaw
enjoys a reputation for mimicry; he takes off music-hall singers in
the bar-parlour of a Saturday night. Observe, he rises, hems, pulls
down his waistcoat; there is bubbling laughter. Mr. Kitshaw brings
back the debate to its original subject; he talks of the Land.
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