I will acknowledge that I was enraged. It seemed to me impossible that such folly should be allowed to prevail, or that after all my efforts I should be treated by my own friends after such a fashion. I also got upon my legs and protested loudly that Mr. Watt and Mr. Smith did not even know what had been the subject under discussion, when the vote adverse to novels had been taken. No record was kept of our proceedings; and, as I clearly showed to them, Mr. Regan and Mr. Hallam were quite as likely to hold correct views on this subject as were Mr. Watt and Mr. Smith. All calling of men Pat, and Jack, and Walter, was for the moment over. Watt admitted the truth of this argument, and declared that they must again decide whether my story of “The New Inmate” was or was not a novel in the sense intended when the previous vote was taken. If not—if the decision on that point should be in my favour—then the privilege of reading it would at any rate belong to me. I believed so thoroughly in my own work that I desired nothing beyond this. We went to work, therefore, and took the votes on the proposition—Was or was not the story of “The New Inmate” debarred by the previous resolution against the admission of novels?
The decision manifestly rested with Mrs. St. Quinten. I was master, easily master, of three votes. Hallam and Regan were altogether with me, and in a matter of such import I had no hesitation in voting for myself. Had the question been the acceptance or rejection of the story for the magazine, then, by the nature of our constitution, I should have had no voice in the matter. But this was not the case, and I recorded my own vote in my own favour without a blush. Having done so, I turned to Mrs. St. Quinten with an air of supplication in my face of which I myself was aware, and of which I became at once ashamed. She looked round at me almost furtively, keeping her eyes otherwise fixed upon Churchill Smith’s immovable countenance. I did not condescend to speak a word to her. What words I had to say, I had spoken to them all, and was confident in the justice of my cause. I quickly dropped that look of supplication and threw myself back in my chair. The moment was one of intense interest, almost of agony, but I could not allow myself to think that in very truth my work would be rejected by them before it was seen. If such were to be their decision, how would it be possible that the Panjandrum should ever be brought into existence? Who could endure such ignominy and still persevere?
There was silence among us, which to me in the intensity of my feelings seemed to last for minutes. Regan was the first to speak. “Now, Mrs. St. Quinten,” he said, “it all rests with you.” An idea shot across my mind at the moment, of the folly of which we had been guilty in placing our most vital interests in the hands of a woman merely on the score of gallantry. Two votes had been given to her as against one of ours simply because—she was a woman. It may be that there had been something in the arrangement of compensation for the tea and muffins; but if so, how poor was the cause for so great an effect! She sat there the arbiter of our destinies. “You had better give your vote,” said Smith roughly. “You think it is a novel?” she said, appealing to him. “There can be no doubt of it,” he replied; “a novel is not a novel because it is long or short. Such is the matter which we intended to declare that we would not put forth in our magazine.” “I protest,” said I, jumping up—“I protest against this interference.”
Then there was a loud and very angry discussion whether Churchill Smith was justified in his endeavour to bias Mrs. St. Quinten; and we were nearly brought to a vote upon that. I myself was very anxious to have that question decided—to have any question decided in which Churchill Smith could be shown to be in the wrong. But no one would back me, and it seemed to me as though even Regan and Jack Hallam were falling off from me—though Jack had never yet restored to me that article of clothing to which allusion was made in the first chapter of this little history, and I had been almost as anxious for Pat’s Latin translation as for my own production. It was decided without a vote that any amount of free questioning as to each other’s opinions, and of free answering, was to be considered fair. “I tell her my opinion. You can tell her yours,” said Churchill Smith. “It is my opinion,” said I, “that you want to dictate to everybody and to rule the whole thing.” “I think we did mean to exclude
