A People's Man Part 20

They tell me you're a bit of a revolutionist, Mr. Maraton."

"I'm anything," Maraton answered, "that will do away with such profits as you've been speaking of. I am anything which will bring a fair share of the profits of his labour to the operative who now gets none.

I hate capital. It's a false quant.i.ty, a false value. It's got to come back to the people. It belongs to them."

"You're right, man," Henneford declared grimly. "How are you going to get it back, eh? Show us. We are powerful up here. We could paralyse trade from the Clyde to the Thames, if we thought it would do any good.

What's your text to-night, Mr. Maraton?"

"I haven't thought," Maraton replied. "I have plenty to say to the people though."

"You gave 'em what for in Chicago," Preston remarked, with a grin.

"I haven't been used to mince words," Maraton admitted.

"There's four thousand policemen told off to look after you," Henneford informed him. "By-the-bye, is it true that Dale and all of them are coming up to-night?"

Maraton nodded.

"I wired for some of them," he a.s.sented. "So long as I am going to make a definite p.r.o.nouncement, they may as well hear it."

"Been spending the week-end with Foley, haven't you?" Preston enquired, closing his eyes a little.

Maraton nodded. "Yes," he confessed, "I have been there."

"There are many that don't think much of Foley," Henneford remarked.

"Myself I am not sure what to make of him. I think he'd be a people's man, right enough, if it wasn't for the Cabinet."

"I believe, in my heart," Maraton said, "that he is a people's man."

They sped on through deserted s.p.a.ces, past smoke-stained factories, across cobbled streets, past a wilderness of small houses, grimy, everywhere repellent. Soon they entered Manchester by the back way and pulled up presently at a small and unimposing hotel.

"We've taken a room for you here," Henneford announced. "It's close to the hall, and it's quiet and clean enough. The big hotels I doubt whether you'd ever be able to get out of, when once they found where you were."

"As a matter of fact," Preston added, "there's a room taken in your name at the Midland, to put folks off a bit. We'll have to smuggle you out here if there's any trouble to-night. The people are rare and restless."

"It will do very nicely, I am sure," Maraton replied.

The place was an ordinary commercial hotel, clean apparently but otherwise wholly unattractive. Henneford led the way up-stairs and with some pride threw open the door of a room on the first floor. "We've got you a sitting-room," he said. "Thought you might want to talk to these Press people, perhaps, or do a bit of work. Your secretary's somewhere about the place--turned up with a typewriter early this morning. And there's a young woman--"

"A what?" Maraton asked.

"A young woman," Henneford continued,--"secretary's sister or something."

Maraton smiled.

"Miss Thurnbrein."

"What, the tailoress?" Preston replied. "She's a good sort. Wrote rare stuff, she did, about her trade. They are out together, seeing the sights. Didn't expect you quite so soon, I expect."

Maraton looked around the little sitting-room. It was furnished with a carpet of bright green thrown over a foundation of linoleum, a suite of stamped magenta plush, an overmantel, gilt cornices over the windows, a piano, a table covered with a gaudy tablecloth. On the walls were hung some oleographs. The lighting of the room was of gas with incandescent mantles. There had been, apparently, judging by an odour which still remained, a great deal of beer consumed in the apartment at one time or another.

"Nice room, this," Mr. Henneford remarked approvingly. "Slap up, ain't it? Your bedroom's next door, and your secretary's just round the corner. Done you proud, I reckon. Like a royal suite, eh?"

He laughed good-humouredly. Mr. Preston removed his pipe and rang the bell.

"One drink, I think," he suggested, "and we'll leave Mr. Maraton alone for a bit. You and I'll go down to the station and meet the chaps from London, and we'll have a meeting up here--say at five o'clock. That suit you, Mr. Maraton?"

"Excellently," Maraton a.s.sented. "What shall I order?" he asked, as the waiter entered.

Beer, whiskey and cigars were brought. Maraton asked a few eager questions about the condition of one of the industries, and followed Henneford to the door, talking rapidly.

"I know so little about the state of woman labour over here," he said.

"In America they are better paid in proportion. Perhaps, if Miss Thurnbrein is here, she will be able to give me some information."

"You'll soon get posted up," Mr. Henneford declared. "I can see you've got a quick way of dealing with things. So long till five o'clock, then. There's a dozen chaps waiting down-stairs to see you. We'll leave it to your judgment just what you want to say to the Press. Ring the bell and have the waiter bring their cards up."

They departed and Maraton returned to his sitting-room. He stood for a moment looking out over the city, the roar of which came to him clearly enough through the open window. He forgot the depressing tawdriness of his surroundings in the exhilaration of the sound. He was back again amongst the people, back again where the wheels of life were cras.h.i.+ng.

The people! He drew himself up and his eyes sought the furthest limits of that dim yellow haze. Somehow, notwithstanding a vague uneasiness which hung about him like an effort of wounded conscience, he had a still greater buoyancy of thought when he considered his possibly altered att.i.tude towards the mult.i.tude who waited for his message. He felt his feet upon the earth with more certainty, with more implicit realism, than in those days when he had spoken to them of the future and had perhaps forgotten to tell them how far away that future must be.

There was something more practical about his present att.i.tude. What would they say here in Manchester, expecting fire and thunder from his lips and finding him hold out the olive branch? He shrugged his shoulders;--a useless speculation, after all. He rang the bell and glanced through the cards which the waiter brought him.

"I have nothing of importance to say to any reporters," he declared, "but I will see them all for two minutes. You can show them up in the order in which they came."

The waiter withdrew and Maraton was left for a few moments alone. Then the door was opened and closed again by the waiter, who made no announcement. A man came forward--a small man, very neatly dressed, with gold spectacles and a little black beard. Maraton welcomed him and pointed to a chair.

"I have nothing whatever to say to the newspapers," he explained, "until after I have addressed my first few meetings. You probably will have nothing to ask me then. All the same, I am very pleased to see you, and since you have been waiting, I thought I had better have you come up, if it were only for a moment. No one who has a great cause at their backs, you know, can afford to disregard the Press."

The man laid his hat upon the table. Maraton, glancing across the room at him, was instantly conscious that this newcomer was no ordinary person. He had a strong, intellectual forehead, a well-shaped mouth.

His voice, when he spoke, was pleasant, although his accent was peculiar--almost foreign.

"Mr. Maraton," his visitor began, "I thank you very much for your courtesy, but I have nothing to do with the Press. My name is Beldeman.

I have come to Manchester especially to see you."

Maraton nodded.

"We are strangers, I believe?" he asked.

"Strangers personally. No thinking man to-day is a stranger to Mr.

Maraton in any other way."

"You are very kind," Maraton replied. "What can I do for you?"

Beldeman glanced towards the door so as to be sure that it was closed.

"Mr. Maraton," he enquired, "are you a bad-tempered man?"

"At times," Maraton admitted.

"I regret to see," his visitor proceeded, "that you are a man of superior physique to mine. I am here to make you an offer which you may consider an insult. If you are a narrow, ordinary Englishman, obstinate, with cast-iron principles and the usual prejudices, you will probably try to throw me down-stairs. It is part of my living to run the risk of being thrown down-stairs."

"I will do my best," Maraton promised him, "to restrain myself. You have at least succeeded in exciting my curiosity."