“Well, if I’d ever ha’ thowt that I war coomin’ to Lunnon to put myself and my party oonder the heel o’ Muster Harry Wharton, I’d ha’ stayed at home, I tell tha,” cried Wilkins, slapping his knee.  “If it’s to be the People’s party, why, in the name o’ God, must yo put a yoong ripstitch like yon at the head of it? a man who’ll just mak use of us all, you an’ me, and ivery man Jack of us, for his own advancement, an’ ull kick us down when he’s done with us!  Why shouldn’t he?  What is he?  Is he a man of us—­bone of our bone?  He’s a landlord, and an aristocrat, I tell tha!  What have the likes of him ever been but thorns in our side?  When have the landlords ever gone with the people?  Have they not been the blight and the curse of the country for hun’erds of years?  And you’re goin’ to tell me that a man bred out o’ them—­living on his rent and interest—­grinding the faces of the poor, I’ll be bound if the truth were known, as all the rest of them do—­is goin’ to lead me, an’ those as’ll act with me to the pullin’ down of the landlords!  Why are we to go lickspittlin’ to any man of his sort to do our work for us?  Let him go to his own class—­I’m told Mr. Wharton is mighty fond of countesses, and they of him!—­or let him set up as the friend of the working man just as he likes—­I’m quite agreeable!—­I shan’t make any bones about takin’ his vote; but I’m not goin’ to make him master over me, and give him the right to speak for my mates in the House of Commons.  I’d cut my hand off fust!”

Leven grinned in the background.  Bennett lay back in his chair with a worried look.  Wilkins’s crudities were very distasteful to him both in and out of the House.  The younger of the Socialist workmen, a mason, with a strong square face, incongruously lit somehow with the eyes of the religious dreamer, looked at Wilkins contemptuously.

“There’s none of you in the House will take orders,” he said quickly, “and that’s the ruin of us.  We all know that.  Where do you think we’d have been in the struggle with the employers, if we’d gone about our business as you’re going about yours in the House of Commons?”

“I’m not saying we shouldn’t organise,” said Wilkins, fiercely.  “What I’m sayin’ is, get a man of the working class—­a man who has the wants of the working class—­a man whom the working class can get a hold on—­to do your business for you, and not any bloodsucking landlord or capitalist.  It’s a slap i’ the face to ivery honest working man i’ the coontry, to mak’ a Labour party and put Harry Wharton at t’ head of it!”

The young Socialist looked at him askance.  “Of course you’d like it yourself!” was what he was thinking.  “But they’ll take a man as can hold his own with the swells—­and quite right too!”

“And if Mr. Wharton is a landlord he’s a good sort!” exclaimed the shoemaker—­a tall, lean man in a well-brushed frock coat.  “There’s many on us knows as have been to hear him speak, what he’s tried to do about the land, and the co-operative farming.  E’s straight is Mr. Wharton.  We ‘aven’t got Socialism yet—­an’ it isn’t ‘is fault bein’ a landlord.  Ee was born it.”