Empire! and the Flag! and the
Royal Family. The things he said were received with rapturous
applause, and at the conclusion of his address, the crowd sang the
National Anthem with great enthusiasm and dispersed, congratulating
themselves that they had shown to the best of their ability what
Mugsborough thought of Socialism and the general opinion of the crowd
was that they would hear nothing more from the Socialist van.

But in this they were mistaken, for the very next Sunday evening a
crowd of Socialists suddenly materialized at the Cross Roads. Some of
them had come by train, others had walked from different places and
some had cycled.

A crowd gathered and the Socialists held a meeting, two speeches being
delivered before the crowd recovered from their surprise at the
temerity of these other Britishers who apparently had not sense enough
to understand that they had been finally defeated and obliterated last
Tuesday evening: and when the cyclist with the bandaged head got up on
the hillock some of the crowd actually joined in the hand-clapping with
which the Socialists greeted him.

In the course of his speech he informed them that the man who had come
with the van and who had been felled whilst attempting to speak from
the platform was now in hospital. For some time it had been probable
that he would not recover, but he was now out of danger, and as soon as
he was well enough there was no doubt that he would come there again.

Upon this Crass shouted out that if ever the Vanners did return, they
would finish what they had begun last Tuesday. He would not get off so
easy next time. But when he said this, Crass--not being able to see
into the future--did not know what the reader will learn in due time,
that the man was to return to that place under different circumstances.

When they had finished their speech-making one of the strangers who was
acting as chairman invited the audience to put questions, but as nobody
wanted to ask any, he invited anyone who disagreed with what had been
said to get up on the hillock and state his objections, so that the
audience might have an opportunity of judging for themselves which side
was right; but this invitation was also neglected. Then the chairman
announced that they were coming there again next Sunday at the same
time, when a comrade would speak on 'Unemployment and Poverty, the
Cause and the Remedy', and then the strangers sang a song called
'England Arise', the