Chapter VI

In the height of that splendid London season which had seen Mr. Clutterbuck's introduction to Mrs. Smith's delightful circle, a little thing had happened at Podger's Wharf in the neighbourhood of Nine Elms upon the south side of the river.

A gentleman of the name of Peake employed by Messrs. Harman and James, barge and transport masters, to pump and swab out the bilge of the "Queen of Denmark," certified to carry 182 tons of merchandise, and of due cubic capacity for that burthen, discovered himself unable to reach the vessel on account of the intervening mud and the accident of an exceptionally low tide.

At twelve o'clock the new and well-appointed hooter of Messrs. Harman and James's works having sounded, Mr. Peake immediately laid down the mop and hand-pump with which he had been furnished, and proceeded to pass the check door and receive his salary, for it was a Saturday. The day was very sunny and bright--but that is not to my purpose.

Mr. Harman himself approached Mr. Peake and suggested to him that now the tide was rising he might gratify the firm by remaining at an increased salary for a couple of hours to accomplish his task; but Mr. Peake pointed out with such brevity as the occasion demanded that this would be a gross violation of the rules of his Union, and moved towards the gate.

It was at this moment that Mr. Harman committed the deplorable error which was to lead to such enormous consequences in the body politic: he lost his temper. He was alleged, I know not with how much truth, to have addressed Mr. Peake in terms vividly suggesting social inferiority; but whether this be true or not it is certain that he assured Mr. Peake of the uselessness of seeking further employment at the wharf; nay, he had the brutality to tender to that gentleman a week's salary in lieu of notice, and having done so he retired.

I will not here go into the vexed question of the language used on either side, nor enter into Mr. Harman's somewhat lame excuses that he was provoked by a certain expression of his employee's which cast a most unjust reflection upon his, Mr. Harman's, pride of birth and personal morals. Mr. Harman's hasty action was surely indefensible upon any provocation, and its natural consequence was that the remainder of those who worked at Podger's Wharf were called out by their Union, while the United Riverside Workers and Sons of Southwark threatened a sympathetic cessation of labour to extend from the eastern side of Hammersmith Bridge to the western edge of the steps at the bottom of Edgar Street in Limehouse.

I need hardly say that under these circumstances the compulsory clauses of the Conciliation Act of 1909 were at once acted upon by the popular and wealthy President of the Board of Trade, and the decision of the courts, the machinery of which in such actions is extraordinarily rapid, was given within three days entirely in favour of the Union; indeed, no other decision could possibly have been arrived at, and public opinion thoroughly justified the coercion very properly applied to the tyrannical master; papers as different as the _Spectator_ and the _Winning Post_ were at one upon the matter, and their widely separate reading publics heartily agreed.

So far the incident, though it had attained certain dimensions, did not threaten any very grave results. But it so happened that a section of the workers involved, namely, the Paint Removers and Tar and Marine Composition Appliers had taken advantage of the disturbance to demand the abolition of piecework upon all hulks and upon all vessels in active use between the Garboard Strake and the North Atlantic Winter Loading Line. The courts, in their haste to settle the main issue, had perhaps too lightly overlooked this contention, and the result was some considerable disappointment among the Paint Removers and Tar and Marine Composition Appliers throughout the Port of London. The Union, as it was bound to do by statute, accepted the decision of the court; unfortunately a gentleman of the name of Fishmonger, in company with his brother-in-law, Henry Bebb (hereinforth and henceforward known as "Another"), both expert Tar Smoothers, felt so strongly upon the matter that they refused to return to work. A warrant was made out for their arrest, and though their Union was somewhat half-hearted in the matter, the P.D.Q. and several other societies desired to fight it, and under the powers afforded by the same statute they lodged an appeal--for, as is now well known, there are certain cases in which a workman cannot be compelled to accept employment even after the Court of Conciliation has delivered its judgment.

The appeal was heard before Justices Hunnybubble, Compton and Welsh. Sir John Compton was averse to create a precedent of such lamentable consequence; the Act was new, it was, so to speak, upon its trial, and though he would have been the first to admit that he was there not to make the law but to administer it, he could not but recognise the function of an English judge in the commonwealth, and he was for finding some issue by which Mr. Fishmonger and Mr. Bebb might escape the too drastic consequences of a somewhat hastily drafted measure.

We are not a logical people: we refuse to be bound by the formal syllogisms so popular with the lower races of Europe and especially among the dying Latin nations. There is no doubt that Mr. Justice Compton reflected, in the attitude he adopted, the permanent common sense of the nation. Unfortunately, Mr. Justice Hunnybubble, in spite of the sterling Saxon name he bore, was too much of the lawyer and the pedant to concur. In his long and disastrous decision he introduced a hundred empty abstractions and metaphysical whimsies: that "contract was mutual," for instance, or that "the obligation was binding upon either party." He even descended to talking of "equality," declared the law as much the defender of the rich man as of the poor, and would not admit, in theory, that contrast between Employer and Employed, which is so glaring in practice to every eye. He insisted that if the master was constrained to take a workman back, so was that workman bound to return; he so strained the petty details of the Act itself as to interpret the words "all parties" in clause IV. to include the employees as well as the employers, and applied the phrase "shall abide by the award under pain, &c.," to hungry artisan as severely as to paunchy capitalist.

In spite of Sir John Compton's dissent, Mr. Justice Hunnybubble took with him his colleague, Welch. The decision of the lower court was therefore upheld, and Mr. Fishmonger and Mr. Bebb, who had found better paid employment in the Halls during the Long Vacation, and who refused to re-enter the yard, were, to the shame of our institutions, cast into Holloway Jail as first class misdemeanants. They were deprived of the use of tobacco and the daily newspapers; and even their cuisine was regulated by official order.

While the case was still _sub judice_ the respect invariably shown to the courts forbade any open comment, but when, some ten days after Mr. Clutterbuck's interview with the executive of Mickleton, the deplorable miscarriage of justice had actually taken place, and when the populace had been afforded the spectacle of these two unfortunate men driven in a common cab to their dungeon, the storm burst.

The general emotion did not at first find its way into the public Press: the proprietors of our daily and weekly journals have too strong a regard for the Bench to permit themselves any immediate criticism of a judicial decision, and the relations into which they are nightly brought with our judges as host or guest in many a hospitable house, adds to their natural reserve; but in spite of this absence of printed comment, the matter became first the chief, and at last the only subject of talk among the artisans of the metropolis, from them it spread, as all such movements must, to the unskilled labourers, and from these to the general population of London. Within a fortnight the police were aware of the extraordinary extent of the ferment, and the Home Secretary went so far as to curtail a pleasant visit at the country seat of the Baron de Czernwitz, in order to hurry up to town and consult with his brother-in-law, the Lord Chief Justice, and his wife's uncle, the Chief Commissioner. His decision was to do nothing: but meanwhile two public meetings had been held, one in Moore's Circus, another an open-air one, on Peckham Rye, and feeling had risen so high that two newspapers actually admitted short reports of the proceedings at each of these gatherings.

Early in November, while matters were in this very critical state, the sitting member for Mickleton whose financial entanglement could no longer be concealed, fled to Ostend and was rash enough to take his life in the front room of the Villa des Charmettes, thereby leaving a vacancy in the representation of his borough.

Mr. Clutterbuck's easy prospect of nursing Mickleton, of carefully and continuously supporting its worthier activities, and of extending a judicious hospitality to its many inhabitants, was suddenly shattered: he must prepare for instant action. It was with a mixture of fixed concern and unpleasant excitement that, under the direction of Charlie Fitzgerald, his plans were made.

The writ, it was understood, would be issued on the following Wednesday week, and the polling would take place upon Saturday, November 19; there was little time to lose. The dates and places of the principal meetings were rapidly arranged, the printers among whom work was to be distributed were carefully noted, the excellent organisation of the constituency had prepared him a numbered list of the electors who would expect a personal visit, and he received one morning by post the manifesto which had been drawn up at headquarters for him to sign.

Mr. Clutterbuck had signed this in his businesslike way and had left it for his secretary to post.

That gentleman came in from his usual morning spin in the green Darracq--the Napier he had slightly damaged some days before in attempting a group of oxen on Merstham hill. As he slowly mastered the few lines he began to shake his head solemnly and at last laid the document down, saying:

"It won't do as it is."

"You don't want me to add to it myself, Mr. Fitzgerald?" said Mr. Clutterbuck with an anxious look.

"N--no," said Fitzgerald, running his finger down the page.... "My point is ... there's something you got to add."

He read it again more closely, knitting his brows.

It was a straightforward bit of democratic pleading and clear, popular statement. It emphasised the importance to Great Britain of raising the price of Consols up to a standard level of seventy-five, of maintaining and if possible increasing the gold reserve so that the Bank rate should not rise above six per cent. for more than three months at one time; it declared strongly for the principle of female courts of justice, and supported the policy of the Government in its recent subsidies to the Grimsby fishing industry, the White Star Line, the Small Holders Capitalisation Association, the new "Eastern Counties Railway," and Lord Painton's Association for the Construction and Repair of English Canals.

Upon lesser matters it turned to criticise the woeful parsimony of the late administration, and contrasted the provision made for the fleet in the last National Budget with the Naval Estimates of 1908.

The document ended with a paragraph upon the Offences Disfranchisement Bill, which Charlie Fitzgerald read with close attention. It was as follows:

"_In my opinion those who have borne themselves so ill as to merit condemnation by one of our English justices of the peace, whether to fine or imprisonment, or both, are certainly worthy of some measure of loss of the powers of the fulness of complete and unrestricted citizenship; but I shall reserve my judgment upon the present Government's decision to withdraw the franchise for five years, or in some cases in perpetuity, from those who have done no more than to excite such grave suspicion as must attach to those who have been arrested by the police or have been present as defendants in a county court._"

Fitzgerald read this sentence three times over, and sighed. "Too many 'ofs'," he murmured, "too many words!... Did you _notice_ that last paragraph?" he added without looking up at his employer.

"I really can't say, Mr. Fitzgerald," answered that gentleman moving about somewhat uneasily. "I can't tell you, quoted offhand like that. What's it about?"

"Well, it _seems_ to be about the Offences Disfranchisement Bill, but God only knows who drafted it."

"Who--what?" said Mr. Clutterbuck still more uneasily, coming and looking over his shoulder.

"Who wrote it out," said Fitzgerald, "who designed the beastly thing?"

"Really, Mr. Fitzgerald, really," said Mr. Clutterbuck. He had not himself written the fatal words, but he had carried on a little correspondence of his own about them, and he did not like the work to be treated so sharply, though his respect for Charlie Fitzgerald was still strong.

"It's got to go," said Fitzgerald decisively.

"Oh, Mr. Fitzgerald!" said Mr. Clutterbuck in some alarm, "we can't do without an allusion to the Offences Bill! Really, Mr. Fitzgerald, you know it's the most important reform, well, of our time so to speak. Why," said he, remembering sundry quotations from his reading: "this country is the pioneer; Italy's only talked of the thing; Germany's backward. There's only Nebraska abreast of us. And think of the effect!"

"Look here," said Charlie Fitzgerald a little impatiently, "_that_ paragraph has got to go. If you want to say anything about the Offences Disfranchisement Bill you had better put in four lines saying that wild horses won't make you vote for it in any shape or form. But I doubt whether those old jossers in Mickleton would pass that. Just say nothing about it, and a day or two before the poll enlarge your spirit on the platform and damn it up hill and down dale."

Mr. Clutterbuck felt like a man who had just lost his dog, but he held his tongue, and only thought mournfully of the letters that might come to him next day.

"And now," said Charlie Fitzgerald as he drew a red chalk thoughtfully through the offending paragraph, "I'm going off this evening, and when I come back I shall tell you what I _think_ ought to be added at the end of the manifesto--I shall know then."

He got up quite suddenly. "I won't be late," he added. "I'll be back before midnight, and I'll tell you."

Mr. Clutterbuck and he looked at each other without speaking for a moment, and for once there was a slight disturbance in the merchant's mind as he looked through the window and saw his secretary calmly giving orders to the gardener and to the mechanician, and a moment later stepping into the newly-bought F.I.A.T. with a gesture of proprietorship that was perhaps a trifle exaggerated.

But this unworthy mood disturbed for but a moment the Clutterbuckian poise, and certainly his young friend's achievement, when he returned to tell of it, would have dispelled for ever any such ill-omened emotion.

* * * * *

The business which Mr. Fitzgerald had before him that evening was one so familiar to all those acquainted with the apparatus of self-government, that it is perhaps redundant in me to chronicle it. Nevertheless it was of such importance in the events that follow, that I must briefly relate it.

He drove to the station and sent the car back (its reappearance was a first solace to the master of the house); he took, out of the petty cash, a first return for Victoria, hailed a cab as he left the station (noting the expense with a regularity rare in a man of high birth and Irish nationality), drove to his Club, dined handsomely, again put down this incidental item in round figures, hailed yet another cab, and told the driver vaguely to drive to Mickleton.

The driver, a North countryman of sturdy temper, insisted upon knowing an exact address, but upon receiving a reply which savoured too much of carelessness about The Future Life, he whipped up his horse and drove northward as he was bid, taking, as is the invariable custom of hackney coachmen, the largest and the widest artery of the place, a street known for some centuries as the London Road, called during the eighties and nineties The Boulevard, but since the feat of arms of General Baden-Powell, characteristically and finally christened Mafeking Avenue.

In this fine thoroughfare were to be discovered not a few licensed premises. Charlie Fitzgerald chose the most sumptuous of these and the best lit, stopped the cab and went in. He was about to explore the public opinion of Mickleton.

He came out in a quarter of an hour, drove on to another public-house, visited it for a few minutes only, called at another and another, and so until he had fairly sampled the constituents in perhaps a dozen of those general rendezvous where the political temper of a great people may best be determined. The result of his investigation was much what he had expected, though it was more precise, and in one matter much more emphatic, than he would have premised before he began his inquiry.

The populace were, as he had expected, indifferent to, and for the greater part ignorant of, the death of their respected member. Those of them who were acquainted with his demise found it difficult to keep an audience, and the few who had attempted to retail it as an entertaining item of news, were met by the coarsest of opposition, save in the case of one man, who ascribed it with conviction to murder at the hands of the police, pointing out to his companion at "The Naked Man" how many cases of such mysterious deaths had recently occurred on the Opposition side of the House, and drawing from his own rich experience of the constabulary many dark examples of their mysterious power.

But while the death of the late baronet was found to have produced so little impression, one topic struck Fitzgerald's ears upon every side, and this, I need hardly say, was the case of Rex v. Fishmonger and Another.

The full legal terminology was unfamiliar to these plain working men, and they alluded to it commonly as "the Nine Elms business," or the "Podger's Lay" to which the more familiar would add the term, "the Holloway job." But unvarnished and even inaccurate as were their expressions, it was clear that they were deeply moved. Save here and there in the saloon bars, where the local gentry would meet in rarer numbers, and where Fitzgerald during this tour had little concern, nothing else was talked of: most significant of all, as he rightly judged, was the ardent sympathy of the potboys, the barmaids, and the very publicans themselves, who, for all their substantial position as employers of labour, could not conceal their ardent agreement with their customers.

A foreigner unacquainted with the national temper, and hearing the popular judgments passed upon Mr. Justice Hunnybubble, might have imagined that exalted personage's life to be in danger, and in more than one instance Charlie Fitzgerald was annoyed to have a glass smashed under his nose in the heat of the denunciations, or to find some huge and purple visage, one with which he was totally unacquainted, angrily challenging him to agree with the general verdict or to take Toko. With true diplomacy Fitzgerald joined heartily in the universal topic and opinion, but his clothes and accent laid him open to a just suspicion, and he was glad when his round of visits was over and his mind thoroughly informed.

It is not an easy thing to conduct such a piece of research after dinner in a dozen public-houses large and small, and to retain one's clarity of vision and one's acuteness of judgment. But Fitzgerald, by the simple manœuvre of ordering the whiskey and the water separately, and of ultimately standing the former to a chance acquaintance in each place, accomplished his mission with complete success. As he took the last train at Victoria, after discharging the cabman with an ample reward (which he again noted in round figures), he had the campaign well in hand.

That night, late as it was, he found Mr. Clutterbuck waiting for him, and, what is more, Mrs. Clutterbuck as well. He manfully stood out one hour of earnest defence against her continued presence, and when, not without a promise of vengeance in her eye she had determined to retreat, he tackled Mr. Clutterbuck at once, and told him that the constituency was his upon one condition.

Mr. Clutterbuck, who seriously feared that the condition would involve yet another generous recognition of The Sons of Endeavour, was relieved beyond measure to hear that no more was required of him than a strong and simple declaration such as behoved a Democrat upon a plain matter of public policy.

"You got to speak heart and soul for Fishmonger--and for the Other also, I suppose," said Charlie Fitzgerald. "If you think you dare do it, go for Hunnybubble, and do as little as you can of anything else. That's the tip," said Fitzgerald, bringing his hands together with a hearty clap like a pistol shot, and mentally calculating his total expenses of the evening, with ten shillings added for a margin.

It was all Greek to Mr. Clutterbuck, but he understood it was politics. To a man of his frankness and probity political work was clear, and--so that it were political work and contained no hint of corruption--he was ready for the fray.

Of the elements of the matter he could only remember vaguely the word Fishmonger tucked away in small type in the legal columns of the _Times_, while for Mr. Justice Hunnybubble he had never felt any feeling more precise than the deference due to a man who was gratefully remembered by the social class to which Mr. Clutterbuck belonged as "Hanging Jim."

The hour was too late for him to follow further argument. It was not till next morning that his strategy was laid down for him by his invaluable secretary.

The manifesto was brought out again, the last objectionable paragraph was cut out, and in its place Charlie Fitzgerald added these ringing words:

"MUCH MORE THAN ANY PASSING QUESTION OF POLITICS I SHALL CHALLENGE,
IF YOU RETURN ME AS YOUR MEMBER, THE HIDEOUS INJUSTICE AND TYRANNY
WHICH HAS CONDEMNED TWO BRITISH WORKMEN TO LANGUISH IN JAIL FOR
EXERCISING THE COMMON RIGHTS OF EVERY FREE MAN. AND I SHALL LEAVE NO
STONE UNTURNED TO SECURE THE REVERSAL OF THAT INIQUITOUS JUDGMENT."

"Now," said Charlie Fitzgerald pleasantly, when he had drafted this bugle call, "we won't send that back to your agents, will we?" He accompanied this unexpected remark with a sunny smile, and Mr. Clutterbuck looked at him blankly.

"No, no," said Charlie Fitzgerald humorously, "we'll note who the printers are, shall we?" He looked at the small type at the bottom of the sheet and saw "The Alexandra Printing Works."

"I'm greatly relieved," he said, "they're Opposition: they can't be got at by our people." Then he wrote on a slip of paper: "20,000 as corrected. Please note caps in last paragraph. No need for revise. Deliver to address given. Hoardings as order. Immediate." He scribbled Mr. Clutterbuck's initials as it was his secretarial duty to do. He folded up the proof and the note, addressed the cover, and before Mr. Clutterbuck fully seized what had happened, Fitzgerald had himself taken it down to the pillar-box at the lodge and was back, cheerfully contented.

"I'm sure you know best, Mr. Fitzgerald," said Mr. Clutterbuck, though he was not yet quite happy.

For answer Mr. Fitzgerald pulled out of his pocket an evening paper, in which was the account of a police charge in Mickleton itself, which had broken up a monster meeting in favour of the condemned men.

Mr. Clutterbuck read the account carefully, and interlarded his reading with repeated exclamations of wonder addressed apparently to the reporter of the scene.

He was next turning to read the opinions of the paper itself upon the transaction, and would in a moment have discovered its disapproval of his constituency's violence, when Fitzgerald asked for the sheet to be given back to him, and Mr. Clutterbuck at once complied. His mind was clear. The thing was in capitals, and would evidently be the point of the election. He must get it up.