One
moment their eyes would be fixed upon him, filmy, unintelligent,
then they would look at one another with a leer of cunning, or at
best a doubtful grin. Socialism, forsooth! They were as ready for
translation to supernal spheres. Yet some of them were attracted:
'percentage,' 'interest,' 'compound interest,' after all, there
might be something in this! And perhaps they gave their names and
their threepenny bits, engaging to make the deposit regularly on the
day and at the place arranged for in Mutimer's elaborate scheme.
What is there a man cannot get if he asks for it boldly and
persistently enough?
The year had come full circle; it was time that Mutimer received
another remittance from his anonymous supporter. He needed it, for
he had been laying out money without regard to the future. Not only
did he need it for his own support; already he and his committee
held sixty pounds of trust money, and before long he might be called
upon to fulfil his engagement and contribute a hundred pounds--the
promised hundred which had elicited more threepences than all the
rest of his eloquence. A week, a month, six weeks, and he had heard
nothing. Then there came one day a communication couched in legal
terms, signed by a solicitor. It was to the effect that his
benefactor--name and address given in full--had just died.
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