I went there regularly and got my mind broadened to cracking point.  We had all the stars of the New Movements.  We had Doctor Chirk, who lectured on ‘God’, which, as far as I could make out, was a new name he had invented for himself.  There was a woman, a terrible woman, who had come back from Russia with what she called a ‘message of healing’.  And to my joy, one night there was a great buck nigger who had a lot to say about ‘Africa for the Africans’.  I had a few words with him in Sesutu afterwards, and rather spoiled his visit.  Some of the people were extraordinarily good, especially one jolly old fellow who talked about English folk songs and dances, and wanted us to set up a Maypole.  In the debates which generally followed I began to join, very coyly at first, but presently with some confidence.  If my time at Biggleswick did nothing else it taught me to argue on my feet.

The first big effort I made was on a full-dress occasion, when Launcelot Wake came down to speak.  Mr Ivery was in the chair—­the first I had seen of him—­a plump middle-aged man, with a colourless face and nondescript features.  I was not interested in him till he began to talk, and then I sat bolt upright and took notice.  For he was the genuine silver-tongue, the sentences flowing from his mouth as smooth as butter and as neatly dovetailed as a parquet floor.  He had a sort of man-of-the-world manner, treating his opponents with condescending geniality, deprecating all passion and exaggeration and making you feel that his urbane statement must be right, for if he had wanted he could have put the case so much higher.  I watched him, fascinated, studying his face carefully; and the thing that struck me was that there was nothing in it—­nothing, that is to say, to lay hold on.  It was simply nondescript, so almightily commonplace that that very fact made it rather remarkable.

Wake was speaking of the revelations of the Sukhomhnov trial in Russia, which showed that Germany had not been responsible for the war.  He was jolly good at the job, and put as clear an argument as a first-class lawyer.  I had been sweating away at the subject and had all the ordinary case at my fingers’ ends, so when I got a chance of speaking I gave them a long harangue, with some good quotations I had cribbed out of the Vossische Zeitung, which Letchford lent me.  I felt it was up to me to be extra violent, for I wanted to establish my character with Wake, seeing that he was a friend of Mary and Mary would know that I was playing the game.  I got tremendously applauded, far more than the chief speaker, and after the meeting Wake came up to me with his hot eyes, and wrung my hand.  ’You’re coming on well, Brand,’ he said, and then he introduced me to Mr Ivery.  ’Here’s a second and a better Smuts,’ he said.

Ivery made me walk a bit of the road home with him.  ’I am struck by your grip on these difficult problems, Mr Brand,’ he told me.  ’There is much I can tell you, and you may be of great value to our cause.’  He asked me a lot of questions about my past, which I answered with easy mendacity.  Before we parted he made me promise to come one night to supper.