Mike, separated from Psmith by the movement of the crowd, listened with a growing depression. That feeling which attacks a sensitive person sometimes at the theatre when somebody is making himself ridiculous on the stage—the illogical feeling that it is he and not the actor who is floundering—had come over him in a wave. He liked Mr. Waller, and it made his gorge rise to see him exposing himself to the jeers of a crowd. The fact that Mr. Waller himself did not know that they were jeers, but mistook them for applause, made it no better. Mike felt vaguely furious.
His indignation began to take a more personal shape when the speaker, branching off from the main subject of Socialism, began to touch on temperance. There was no particular reason why Mr. Waller should have introduced the subject of temperance, except that he happened to be an enthusiast. He linked it on to his remarks on Socialism by attributing the lethargy of the masses to their fondness for alcohol; and the crowd, which had been inclined rather to pat itself on the back during the assaults on Rank and Property, finding itself assailed in its turn, resented it. They were there to listen to speakers telling them that they were the finest fellows on earth, not pointing out their little failings to them. The feeling of the meeting became hostile. The jeers grew more frequent and less good-tempered.
“Comrade Waller means well,” said a voice in Mike’s ear, “but if he shoots it at them like this much more there’ll be a bit of an imbroglio.”
“Look here, Smith,” said Mike quickly, “can’t we stop him? These chaps are getting fed up, and they look bargees enough to do anything. They’ll be going for him or something soon.”
“How can we switch off the flow? I don’t see. The man is wound up. He means to get it off his chest if it snows. I feel we are by way of being in the soup once more, Comrade Jackson. We can only sit tight and look on.”
The crowd was becoming more threatening every minute. A group of young men of the loafer class who stood near Mike were especially fertile in comment. Psmith’s eyes were on the speaker; but Mike was watching this group closely. Suddenly he saw one of them, a thickset youth wearing a cloth cap and no collar, stoop.
When he rose again there was a stone in his hand.
The sight acted on Mike like a spur. Vague rage against nobody in particular had been simmering in him for half an hour. Now it concentrated itself on the cloth-capped one.
Mr. Waller paused momentarily before renewing his harangue. The man in the cloth cap raised his hand. There was a swirl in the crowd, and the first thing that Psmith saw as he turned was Mike seizing the would-be marksman round the neck and hurling him to the ground, after the manner of a forward at football tackling an opponent during a line-out from touch.
There is one thing which will always distract the attention of a crowd from any speaker, and that is a dispute between two of its units. Mr. Waller’s views on temperance were forgotten in an instant. The audience surged round Mike and his opponent.
The latter had scrambled to his feet now, and was looking round for his assailant.
“That’s ’im, Bill!” cried eager voices, indicating Mike.
“ ’E’s the bloke wot ’it yer, Bill,” said others, more precise in detail.
Bill advanced on Mike in a sidelong, crab-like manner.
“ ’Oo’re you, I should like to know?” said Bill.
Mike, rightly holding that this was merely a rhetorical question and that Bill had no real thirst for information as to his family history, made no reply. Or, rather, the reply he made was not verbal. He waited till his questioner was within range, and then hit him in the eye. A reply far more satisfactory, if not to Bill himself, at any rate to the interested onlookers, than any flow of words.
A contented sigh went up from the crowd. Their Sunday afternoon was going to be spent just as they considered Sunday afternoons should be spent.
“Give us your coat,” said Psmith briskly, “and try and get it over quick. Don’t go in for any fancy sparring. Switch it on, all you know, from the start. I’ll keep a thoughtful eye open to see that none of his friends and relations join in.”
Outwardly Psmith was unruffled, but inwardly he was not feeling so composed. An ordinary turn-up before an impartial crowd which could be relied upon to preserve the etiquette of these matters was one thing. As regards the actual little dispute with the cloth-capped Bill, he felt that he could rely on Mike to handle it satisfactorily. But there was no knowing how long the crowd would be content to remain mere spectators. There was no doubt which way its sympathies lay. Bill, now stripped of his coat and sketching out in a hoarse voice a scenario of what he intended to do—knocking Mike down and stamping him into the mud was one of the milder feats he promised to perform for the entertainment of an indulgent audience—was plainly the popular favourite.
Psmith, though he did not show it, was more than a little apprehensive.
Mike, having more to occupy his mind in the immediate present, was not anxious concerning the future. He had the great advantage over Psmith of having lost his temper. Psmith could look on the situation as a whole, and count the risks and possibilities. Mike could only see Bill shuffling towards him with his head down and shoulders bunched.
“Gow it, Bill!” said someone.
“Pliy up, the Arsenal!” urged a voice on the outskirts of the crowd.
A chorus of
