"I have none," replied Mt.Lavender, disconcerted; "for this is a meeting of the Free Speakers' League, and it is for that reason that have come."The large man looked at him attentively."No admittance without ticket,"he said.
"I protest," said Mr.Lavender."How can you call yourselves by that name and not let me in?"The large man smiled.
"Well, he said, you haven't the strength of--of a rabbit--in you go!"Mr.Lavender found himself inside and some indignation.
The meeting had begun, and a tall man at the pulpit end, with the face of a sorrowful bull, was addressing an audience composed almost entirely of women and old men, while his confederates sat behind him trying to look as if they were not present.At the end of a row, about half-way up the chapel, Mr.Lavender composed himself to listen, thinking, "However eager I may be to fulfil my duty and break up this meeting, it behoves me as a fair-minded man to ascertain first what manner of meeting it is that I am breaking up." But as the speaker progressed, in periods punctuated by applause from what, by his experience at the door, Mr.Lavender knew to be a packed audience, he grew more and more uneasy.It cannot be said that he took in what the speaker was saying, obsessed as he was by the necessity of formulating a reply, and of revolving, to the exclusion of all else, the flowers and phrases of the leaders which during the day he had almost learned by heart.But by nature polite he waited till the orator was sitting down before he rose, and, with the three leaders firmly grasped in his hand, walked deliberately up to the seated speakers.Turning his back on them, he said, in a voice to which nervousness and emotion lent shrillness: