Mutimer brightened up.

’In that case we’ll only get them to do the housemaid work.  You can explain that to the woman; her name is Mrs. Gulliman.’

He paused.

‘Think you can make yourself at home, here?’

‘Yes, certainly.’

’That’s all right.  I shall go out now for an hour or so.  You can unpack your boxes and get things in order a bit.’

Adela had her interview with Mrs. Gulliman in the course of the evening, and fresh arrangements were made, not perhaps to the landlady’s satisfaction, though she made a show of absorbing interest and vast approval.  She was ready to lend her pots and pans till Adela should have made purchase of those articles.

Adela had the satisfaction of saving four shillings a week.

Two days later Mutimer sought eagerly in the ‘Fiery Gross’ for a report of the proceedings at New Wanley.  Only half a column was given to the subject, the speeches being summarised.  He had fully expected that the week’s ‘leader’ would be concerned with his affairs, but there was no mention of him.

He bought the ‘Tocsin.’  Foremost stood an article headed, ’The Bursting of a Soap Bubble.’  It was a satirical review of the history of New Wanley, signed by Comrade Roodhouse.  He read in one place:  ’Undertakings of this kind, even if pursued with genuine enthusiasm, are worse than useless; they are positively pernicious.  They are half measures, and can only result in delaying the Revolution.  It is assumed that working .men can be kept in a good temper with a little better housing and a little more money.  That is to aid the capitalists, to smooth over huge wrongs with petty concessions, to cry peace where there is no peace.  We know this kind of thing of old.  It is the whole system of wage-earning that must be overthrown—­the ideas which rule the relations of employers and employed.  Away with these palliatives; let us rejoice when we see working men starving and ill-clad, for in that way their eyes will be opened.  The brute who gets the uttermost farthing out of the toil of his wage-slaves is more a friend to us and our cause than any namby-pamby Socialist, such as the late Dukeling of New Wanley.  Socialist indeed!  But enough.  We have probably heard the last of this parvenu and his loudly trumpeted schemes.  No true friend of the Revolution can be grieved.’

Mutimer bit his lip.

‘Heard the last of me, have they?  Don’t be too hasty, Roodhouse.’

CHAPTER XXVII

A week later; the scene, the familiar kitchen in Wilton Square.  Mrs. Mutimer, upon whom time has laid unkind hands since last we saw her, is pouring tea for Alice Rodman, who has just come all the way from the West End to visit her.  Alice, too, has suffered from recent vicissitudes; her freshness is to seek, her bearing is no longer buoyant, she is careless in attire.  To judge from the corners of her mouth, she is confirmed in querulous habits; her voice evidences the same.