He rose and held out his hand.  “We will fight him,” he said.  “And you can tell him this, if he asks, that I’m going straight for him.  Parliament may as well close down if a few men between them are to be allowed to own the entire Press of the country, and stifle every voice that does not shout their bidding.  We haven’t dethroned kings to put up a newspaper Boss.  He shall have all the fighting he wants.”

They met more often from that day, for Joan was frankly using her two columns in the Sunday Post to propagate his aims.  Carleton, to her surprise, made no objection.  Nor did he seek to learn the result of his ultimatum.  It looked, they thought, as if he had assumed acceptance; and was willing for Phillips to choose his own occasion.  Meanwhile replies to her articles reached Joan in weekly increasing numbers.  There seemed to be a wind arising, blowing towards Protection.  Farm labourers, especially, appeared to be enthusiastic for its coming.  From their ill-spelt, smeared epistles, one gathered that, after years of doubt and hesitation, they had—­however reluctantly—­arrived at the conclusion that without it there could be no hope for them.  Factory workers, miners, engineers—­more fluent, less apologetic—­wrote as strong supporters of Phillips’s scheme; but saw clearly how upon Protection its success depended.  Shopmen, clerks—­only occasionally ungrammatical—­felt sure that Robert Phillips, the tried friend of the poor, would insist upon the boon of Protection being no longer held back from the people.  Wives and mothers claimed it as their children’s birthright.  Similar views got themselves at the same time, into the correspondence columns of Carleton’s other numerous papers.  Evidently Democracy had been throbbing with a passion for Protection hitherto unknown, even to itself.

“He means it kindly,” laughed Phillips.  “He is offering me an excuse to surrender gracefully.  We must have a public meeting or two after Christmas, and clear the ground.”  They had got into the habit of speaking in the plural.

Mrs. Phillips’s conversion Joan found more difficult than she had anticipated.  She had persuaded Phillips to take a small house and let her furnish it upon the hire system.  Joan went with her to the widely advertised “Emporium” in the City Road, meaning to advise her.  But, in the end, she gave it up out of sheer pity.  Nor would her advice have served much purpose, confronted by the “rich and varied choice” provided for his patrons by Mr. Krebs, the “Furnisher for Connoisseurs.”

“We’ve never had a home exactly,” explained Mrs. Phillips, during their journey in the tram.  “It’s always been lodgings, up to now.  Nice enough, some of them; but you know what I mean; everybody else’s taste but your own.  I’ve always fancied a little house with one’s own things in it.  You know, things that you can get fond of.”