6

Rud's second encounter with the Boss was if possible more exasperating than the first. Rud spent four days turning their first meeting over in his mind, and by that time he was ready with an ultimatum. He made it without consulting his associates. He had learnt that Lord Horatio was going to Liverpool for the week–end, and that there was to be a Birthday Meeting in the smaller Saltbag Hall there. The American trouble was growing acute, but the Popular Socialists seemed to be doing nothing about it. They were plainly wasting an immense opportunity. Rud found Dreed on duty at the Purple House and he had no difficulty in making his way up through the lower rooms to the sanctum on the second floor. He walked in without ceremony.

Lord Horatio was sitting at his desk. He had two documents before him. One was the final draft of his forthcoming Liverpool speech which Mrs. Crumb had just typed. The other was what she had been able to produce by way of a dossier for Rud. He was looking them over portentously and doing nothing about either of them. The dossier was the result of confidential enquiries by Captain Smike, whose duty it was to report upon the internal discipline of the party to the Boss. The last entry noted that Rud had not yet discussed the matter of training with Hoggin. In addition, Smike had some hearsay about Steenhold's flats—he had thought it wiser, he said, not to show himself there until he knew that something was really brewing—and his chief fact was that Rud sometimes talked very well and effectively. "No doubt that several of our older associates think well of him. He has ideas, plentiful if not sound. He has a certain force. But so far—just talk. The rest of that crowd is mostly pink carnations with a pansy border."

(So Smike. The Popular Socialists were always very loud and scornful about pansies—whatever pansies might be. "Carnation" seems to have been Smike's own original unaided term for a mitigated "Red".)

Lord Horatio had a way of rolling back his lips from his teeth and playing imaginary tunes upon them with his finger nails, when engaged in stimulating thought. "Has ideas?" he said, and was tapping his teeth and regarding that draft speech of his schemingly, when Rud burst in.

"What the davil!" exclaimed his lordship. "What do you want? Where's the salute?"

"That salute!" cried Rud. "Oh! How does it go?" Bohun fell into the trap again.

"Don't you trouble about a chair," said Rud. "Don't you bother about a chair. I can say all I have to say walking about the room. But I must know before you leave London what we are going to do about the American trouble. Mexico? And the shooting in South Carolina. Particularly the shooting in South Carolina. It's the grandest opportunity the party has ever had, of taking a line. Before the Communists get hold of it. Slap against the government and with all the natural instincts of the people behind us. What are we going to do?"

He stopped short and stared at Mrs. Crumb. She had flopped back in her chair quite audibly. Her eyebrows had risen a full two inches above the rims of her spectacles.

Lord Horatio was speechless for some seconds. One large freckled fist rested on Rud's dossier. He looked rather like a public monument of a leonine character being desecrated by trippers. "You ask what the party is going to do?" he said at last.

"Well—evidently! Here's exactly where we come in! Where the government couldn't come in, even if it wanted to. We can put Washington, Wall Street and Westminster into the cart now and shake hands right across the Atlantic with the mass opinion in America. The situation is screaming for it."

Lord Horatio held up a hand.

"Have you come here to make speeches Mr.—Mr. Whittle–low? I don't rememba inviting you to do so."

"I don't want to make speeches here, but I want to make speeches for you in London. I can handle this situation. If you have to go to Liverpool, well, anyhow let me have the Hyde Park platform next Sunday. Let me take a line and get a press for the party. I'm ready to discuss it all with you."

"No!" said Lord Horatio.

"Gods!" cried Rud, in a frenzy, wringing his hands. "But look at it!"

Lord Horatio was looking at Rud. This sort of thing, he thought, was what comes of what they called ideas. This youngster was going to be a nuisance in the party—probably even a menace. His effrontery was astonishing.

With an extremity of quiet scorn Lord Horatio demanded: "Are you the head of the Popular Socialist movement or am I?"

"Should I come to you like this if I was?" demanded Rud.

"I wonder if we want a man of your stamp in this movement at all," considered Bohun, still very cold and calm. "Now let me tell you, my boy, that we know exactly what we are doing in this American affair—exactly." He pointed his remarks with an extended finger. "We have our own sources of information and our definite policy. You can hardly expect me to confide in a neophyte like you, what and why and how and when. You've forgotten your place and you've got to learn discipline. You imagine we have no Party Discipline. A day may come when you will know better."

Rud was about to speak, but Lord Horatio was standing up. "Now not a word more of this," he said. "I tell you to go to Commander Hoggin for instructions and to keep your mouth shut until he tells you to open it." He reflected for a moment and then laughed scornfully. "To think of it! You deal with the situation! You take the Hyde Park platform. You! If you come here again to annoy me with this sort of thing I'll have you thrown out of the party. It's only because you're a raw beginner that I tolerate you now."

"Oh foolery! Oh Stick in the Mud!" burst from Rud, a cry of agony.

Lord Horatio rapped the desk with a ruler he had seized. "You rat! You little rat! Salute, Sir, and get out. I'll tell them how to deal with you."

"Salute!" said Rud. "Me—salute!", and then, grinning viciously, "How?"

It looked as though Bohun might lose his self–control, and he was a full five inches taller than Rud and generally much larger. Moreover that ruler might serve as a missile! If he thought of it.

Rud closed the door behind himself and stood quivering on the landing.

"Damn the idiot!" he said.

Lord Horatio stood very still at his desk, dilating and contracting his nostrils almost as though he was doing breathing exercises. Anger illuminated him—in the eyes of Mrs. Crumb.

"I was afraid," whispered Mrs. Crumb, all limp in her chair. "I was afraid—you might kill him."

"He just wants discipline," said Lord Horatio. "I'll break him in yet…I've dealt with tougher stuff than that…Have you ordered the car? Hotel? No. I'm staying with Lady Garbees."