ceremony should perhaps have given him pause.  Yet, on the other hand, these were the very factors of the temptation.  Wimp went in and took a seat behind Denzil.  All the seats were numbered, so that everybody might have the satisfaction of occupying somebody else’s.  Denzil was in the special reserved places in the front row just by the central gangway; Crowl was squeezed into a corner behind a pillar near the back of the hall.  Grodman had been honoured with a seat on the platform, which was accessible by steps on the right and left, but he kept his eye on Denzil.  The picture of the poor idealist hung on the wall behind Grodman’s head, covered by its curtain of brown holland.  There was a subdued buzz of excitement about the hall, which swelled into cheers every now and again as some gentleman known to fame or Bow took his place upon the platform.  It was occupied by several local M.P.’s of varying politics, a number of other Parliamentary satellites of the great man, three or four labour leaders, a peer or two of philanthropic pretensions, a sprinkling of Toynbee and Oxford Hall men, the president and other honorary officials, some of the family and friends of the deceased, together with the inevitable percentage of persons who had no claim to be there save cheek.  Gladstone was late—­later than Mortlake, who was cheered to the echo when he arrived, some one starting “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” as if it were a political meeting.  Gladstone came in just in time to acknowledge the compliment.  The noise of the song, trolled out from iron lungs, had drowned the huzzahs heralding the old man’s advent.  The convivial chorus went to Mortlake’s head, as if champagne had really preceded it.  His eyes grew moist and dim.  He saw himself swimming to the Millennium on waves of enthusiasm.  Ah, how his brother toilers should be rewarded for their trust in him!

With his usual courtesy and consideration, Mr. Gladstone had refused to perform the actual unveiling of Arthur Constant’s portrait.  “That,” he said in his postcard, “will fall most appropriately to Mr. Mortlake, a gentleman who has, I am given to understand, enjoyed the personal friendship of the late Mr. Constant, and has cooperated with him in various schemes for the organisation of skilled and unskilled classes of labour, as well as for the diffusion of better ideals—­ideals of self-culture and self-restraint—­among the working men of Bow, who have been fortunate, so far as I can perceive, in the possession (if in one case unhappily only temporary possession) of two such men of undoubted ability and honesty to direct their divided counsels and to lead them along a road, which, though I cannot pledge myself to approve of it in all its turnings and windings, is yet not unfitted to bring them somewhat nearer to goals to which there are few of us but would extend some measure of hope that the working classes of this great Empire may in due course, yet with no unnecessary delay, be enabled to arrive.”