"Erb"

"BUT I am reminded," shouted the scarlet-faced man on the chair, still keeping his voice to the high note on which he had started, "I am reminded that my time is exhausted. Another talented speaker is 'ere to address you. I refer to our friend Barnes--better known per'aps to all of you as Erb."

The crescent-shaped crowd, growling applause, gave signs of movement, and a round-faced young man, standing at the side of the chair, looked up modestly at the sky.

"He, as you all know, 'ails from the district of Berminsey, where he exercises a certain amount of influence, and, in spite of his youth, is recognised as a positive power in the labour world. He is accustomed to hit straight from the shoulder, and he fears neether friend nor foe. I am going to tell you some'ing you very like don't know, and there's no necessity for it to go any further; that is that he stands a vurry good chance of being made the secretary of a new society. Friends! without further remarks from me, I call upon Comrade Barnes, better known as Erb, to address you. Thanks."

The man stepped down from the chair. "Where's my hat been and gone?" he asked. "Someone's shifted it."

The hour being half past twelve, the crowd had no business of an urgent nature for thirty minutes. A few strolled away to join other groups, and Herbert Barnes, as he took off his bowler hat and stepped upon the green chair, watched these sternly. Southwark Park was being wooed by the morning sun of spring-time, the green fresh grass covered a space that was here and there protected by warning boards; the trees, after a shivering winter, were clothing themselves with a suit of new leaves. Away to the right, masts of shipping in the Surrey Commercial Docks showed high and gaunt above the middle-aged trees that fringed the park: on the other side rows of small houses pressed closely. A few light-haired Scandinavian sailors looked on amiably; timber-carrying men, who showed a horny skin at the back of their necks, as badges of their labour, made up, with railway men in unaccustomed mufti, the rest of the group. The new speaker's features relaxed slightly as he saw two girls, conspicuous in the presence of so many men, join his audience, to resume his earlier manner when one exclaimed disappointedly, "Oh, it's only joring!" and both strolled away towards a bed of flaming tulips. A tall young woman, slightly lame, took their place.

"Friends," said Erb, very quietly, "I was not altogether prepared to be called upon for an address this morning, but--All right, my lad," this in reply to an appeal from the outside of the crescent, "I'll speak up presently. I'll speak up when I'm ready, in a way that'll make even you understand me." The line of speakers near the chair smiled, and the interjector's friends remarked gleefully that this was one in the eye for him. "I say that I came 'ere to this park this morning," he went on, raising his voice defiantly, and smoothing his obstinate hair with one hand, "more as a listener than a teacher, more ready to learn from others than to learn them anything myself." The tall young person on the edge of the crowd winced. "But as I have been called upon, I shall take the liberty of askin' you one or two very straight questions. My friend from Camberwell, who preceded, referred to me as one accustomed to hit straight from the shoulder; that's the way I'm going to play the game this morning. I stand up 'ere," he said, commencing to finger the buttons of his waistcoat, "as a working man addressing his fellow working men. Prouder titles there can never be, and if they was to offer to make me Lord Mayor of London at this present moment I should make answer to the effect that I preferred to be a working man." A voice on the outside asked where he worked? "I am a parcels carman on a railway I am, and I earn twenty-three shillings and sixpence a week." A voice said it was a shame to pay a van-boy the money earned by grown men; Herbert Barnes flushed at this and went on. The voice, deluded, threw at him another remark. "Was he" (asked the voice), "was he a half-timer?"

"I'm going to spare one minute with this chap," said Erb, turning suddenly. "Bring him forward! Stand back from him then, if he's too shy for that, and let's see who we're dealing with. Oh, it's you, is it?"

"Yus," admitted the owner of the voice resentfully, "it is me."

"You don't look 'appy," said Erb.

"I've been listening to you," explained the man.

"Take your 'ands out of your pockets and let's 'ave a look at them." The man turned to go, but the circle declined to permit this. "Take a sight at his little hansy-pansy." Order complied with. "What d'you make of 'em?" "Soft," retorted the expert. "I knew he was a loafer," said Erb. "Let him go now and prop up his favourite pubs; I want to talk to genuine working men, not to bits of touch-wood. My first question is," here he referred to the notes on the back of an envelope which he held in his hand, "my first question is, what is it we working men most keenly desire at the present moment?"

"Tankard of bitter," said someone.

"Ah!" Herbert Barnes whirled round, and pointed a forefinger at the humorist and his friends. "_There's_ a man who speaks the truth. There's a man what says jest the thing he really thinks. There's a man who utters that which is uppermost in his mind. There's a man," he leaned forward as though about to give one last applauding compliment, "whose 'ighest ambition, whose most elevated thought, whose one supreme anxiety is for a tankard of bitter. Friends," with a whirl of both arms, "we talk about the tyranny and what not of capital; the enmity of the upper circles, but there, jest over there, is the class of man that is our greatest opponent, the man from whom we have most to fear. A ten-kard of bit-ter!" he repeated deliberately.

"Well, but," said the humorist in an injured tone, "I suppose a chep can open his mouth?"

"You can open your mouth, and when you do, apparently, it's generally for the purpose of em'tying down it a--"

He hesitated. The crowd, glad to find personalities introduced, gave the words in a muffled chorus.

"Makin' a bloomin' song of it," grumbled the humorist, going off. "Some people can't take a joke."

"'Aving finished with our friend," said Herbert Barnes, loudly, "we will now resume our attention to our original argument. What is it that the working man--"

His voice grew so much in volume that people at Christadelphian and other crowds near the iron gates deserted these, and came across in the hope of better sport. One of his arguments created some dissension, and two men, detaching themselves from the crescent, went off to debate it, and an interested circle formed around these, listening with almost pained interest, and seemingly (from the nodding of their heads) convinced by each argument in turn. The round-faced young man on the Windsor chair, now aiming the fist of one hand into the palm of the other as he laboured at an argument, and giving a tremendous and convincing thump as he made his point, noted the new crowd with approval: it was good to have said the stimulating thing. There were no interrupters now, but occasionally a voice would throw an approving sentence, caught neatly by Herbert Barnes, and used if he thought it wise or necessary; his best retorts were given with a glance at the one young woman of the crowd. He was in the middle of a long sentence decked out with many a paraphrase, and whole regiments of adjectives hurrying to the support of a noun, when the hem of his jacket was pulled, and he stopped. "Surely," he said, in an undertone, "the time ain't up?" The man next him replied, "Oh, ain't it though?" rather caustically.

"Friends," said Herbert resuming his quiet voice, "I'm afraid I've kept you rather long. We've had opportunities before of meetin' each other; we shall 'ave opportunities again. I 'ave only to add one word." The man next to him frowned up at him on hearing this ominous phrase. "It's my firm and steadfast opinion that we shall increase our power and magnify our strength only by sticking close, quite close, shoulder to shoulder, in what I may call the march of progress. Not otherwise shall we see the risin' sun salute the dawn--" (a momentary frown from the lame young woman had disconcerted him)--"of labour's triumph: not otherwise shall we--shall we--"

"Gain," prompted the young man next to him, sulkily.

"Gain--thank you--gain the respect of future ages and the admiration of posterity; not otherwise shall we lead others on in that battle which, to use the language of metaphor--"

"I say, old man," whispered his neighbour, "really! Play the game."

"I will not pursue the train of thought," said Erb, "on which I had, in a manner of speakin', embarked. One an' all, friends--thank you--kind 'tention--I now give way!"

"Feriends!" shouted the next man, stepping quickly on the chair, "our comrade from Berminsey has been so far carried away by his own eloquence as to overstep his time. In these circs, I will abstain from all preliminary remarks and come to the point at once. First of all, 'owever--"

The bowler-hatted men, who had spoken, seemed bored now with the proceedings, and tried to make out the exact time by the clock on the great biscuit factory; unable to do this, they appealed to Erb, who, heated with his oratorical efforts, and gratified to notice that the tall young woman had limped away directly that he had finished, produced a smart silver watch and gave the required information. They spoke in an undertone of the evening's engagements: one proud man was to turn on the gas, as he cheerfully expressed it, at Victoria Park in the afternoon, another had had a long talk with a member of Parliament, and the member had shaken hands with him, "Quite 'omely and affable"; they all presented to the crowd a very serious and thoughtful and statesmanlike appearance as they whispered to each other. Flakes of the crowd began to fall away. The last speaker finished, hoarse and panting.

"Whose turn is it to carry the chair?"

"Erb's!" said the others, quickly.

"But I thought--" he began.

"You thought wrong," said the others. "Besides you're going straight 'ome."

They walked across the grass to the gates near the station, where men and children, and men with babies perched on their shoulders, were making way back to the homes from which they had been temporarily expelled in order to give wives and mothers opportunity for concentrating minds on the preparation for dinner.

"No use trying to blister you for 'alf a pint, Erb?"

"Waste of time," said Erb.

"What d'you do with all your money?"

"I don't find no difficulty," he replied, "in getting rid of it. Any spare cash goes in books. I've got a reg'lar little library at 'ome. John Stuart Mill and Professor Wallace and Robert Owen, and goodness knows what all."

"The only reely sensible thing you've done, Erb," remarked one, "is not getting married."

"That's one of 'em," he admitted.

"You don't know what it is to be always buying boots for the kiddies."