He had kept Adela’s warning in mind, and determined to be calmly dignified in his refutal of the charges brought against him.  For five minutes he impressed his hearers.  He had never spoken better.  In the beginning he briefly referred to the facts of his life, spoke of the use he had made of wealth when he possessed it, demanded if it was likely that he should join with swindlers to rob the very class to which he himself was proud to belong, and for which he had toiled unceasingly.  He spoke of Rodman, and denied that he had ever known of this man’s connection with the Company—­a man who was his worst enemy.  He it was, this Rodman, who doubtless had written the letter which first directed suspicion in the wrong quarter; it was an act such as Rodman would be capable of, for the sake of gratifying his enmity.  And how had that enmity arisen?  He told the story of the lawsuit; showed how, in that matter, he had stood up for common honesty, though at the time Rodman was his friend.  Then he passed to the subject of his stewardship.  Why had he put that trust money into a concern without sufficient investigation?  He could make but one straightforward answer:  he had believed that the Company was sound, and he bought shares because the dividends promised to be large, and it was his first desire to do the very best he could for those who had laid their hard-earned savings in his hands.

For some minutes he had had increasing difficulty in holding his voice above the noise of interruptions, hostile or friendly.  It now became impossible for him to proceed.  A man who was lifted on to the shoulders of two others began to make a counter-speech, roaring so that those around could not but attend to him.  He declared himself one of those whom Mutimer had robbed; all his savings for seven months were gone; he was now out of work, and his family would soon be starving.  Richard’s blood boiled as he heard these words.

‘You lie!’ he bellowed in return; ’I know you.  You are the fellow who said last night that I should run away, and never come at all to this meeting.  I called you a blackguard then, and I call you a liar now.  You have put in my hand six threepences, and no more.  The money you might have saved you constantly got drunk upon.  Your money is waiting for you:  you have only to come and apply for it.  And I say the same to all the rest.  I am ready to pay all the money back, and pay it too with interest.’

‘Of course you are!’ vociferated the other.  ’You can’t steal it, so you offer to give it back.  We know that game.’

It was the commencement of utter confusion.  A hundred voices were trying to make themselves heard.  The great crowd swayed this way and that.  Mutimer looked on a tempest of savage faces—­a sight which might have daunted any man in his position.  Fists were shaken at him, curses were roared at him from every direction.  It was clear that the feeling of the mob was hopelessly against him; his explanations were ridiculed.  A second man was reared on others’ shoulders; but instead of speaking from the place where he was, he demanded to be borne forward and helped to a standing on the cart.  This was effected after a brief struggle with Mutimer’s supporters.  Then all at once there was a cessation of the hubbub that the new speaker might be heard.