Mutimer had to summon his thoughts from a great distance; his endeavour to look sympathetic was not very successful.

‘Not the fever again?’

‘Yes, it is,’ she replied sadly.

‘Going to work in the wet, I suppose?’

He shrugged his shoulders; in his present mood the fact was not so much personally interesting to him as in the light of another case against capitalism.  Emma’s sister had to go a long way to her daily employment, and could not afford to ride; the fifth attack of rheumatic fever was the price she paid for being permitted to earn ten shillings a week.

Daniel returned with both jugs foaming, his face on a broad grin of anticipation.  There was a general move to the table.  Richard began to carve roast beef like a freeman, not by any means like the serf he had repeatedly declared himself in the course of the evening’s oratory.

’Her Royal ‘Ighness out?’ asked Daniel, with constraint not solely due to the fact that his mouth was full.

‘She’s round at Mrs. Took’s, I should think,’ was Mrs. Mutimer’s reply.  ‘Staying supper, per’aps.’

Richard, after five minutes of surprising trencher-work, recommenced conversation.  The proceedings of the evening at the hall, which was the centre for Socialist gatherings in this neighbourhood, were discussed by him and Daniel with much liveliness.  Dan was disposed to take the meeting on its festive and humorous side; for him, economic agitation was a mode of passing a few hours amid congenial uproar.  Whenever stamping and shouting were called for, Daniel was your man.  Abuse of employers, it was true, gave a zest to the occasion, and to applaud the martyrdom of others was as cheery an occupation as could he asked; Daniel had no idea of sacrificing his own weekly wages, and therein resembled most of those who had been loud in uncompromising rhetoric.  Richard, on the other hand, was unmistakably zealous.  His sense of humour was not strong, and in any case he would have upheld the serious dignity of his own position.  One saw from his way of speaking, that he believed himself about to become a popular hero; already in imagination he stood forth on platforms before vast assemblies, and heard his own voice denouncing capitalism with force which nothing could resist.  The first taste of applause had given extraordinary impulse to his convictions, and the personal ambition with which they were interwoven.  His grandfather’s blood was hot in him to-night.  Henry Mutimer, dying in hospital of his broken skull, would have found euthanasia, could he in vision have seen this worthy descendant entering upon a career in comparison with which his own was unimportant.