statue at such a height that the statesman
appeared to be one of the speakers, though at a slightly higher
elevation, and this platform was hung with roses, surmounted by a
sounding-board, and set with a chair and table.

The whole square round about was paved with heads and resonant with
sound, the murmurs of thousands of voices, overpowered now and again by
the crash of brass and thunder of drums as the Benefit Societies and
democratic Guilds, each headed by a banner, deployed from North, South,
East and West, and converged towards the wide railed space about the
platform where room was reserved for them. The windows on every side
were packed with faces; tall stands were erected along the front of the
National Gallery and St. Martin's Church, garden-beds of colour behind
the mute, white statues that faced outwards round the square; from
Braithwaite in front, past the Victorians--John Davidson, John Burns,
and the rest--round to Hampden and de Montfort towards the north. The
old column was gone, with its lions. Nelson had not been found
advantageous to the _Entente Cordiale_, nor the lions to the new art;
and in their place stretched a wide pavement broken by slopes of steps
that led up to the National Gallery.

Overhead the roofs showed crowded friezes of heads against the blue
summer sky. Not less than one hundred thousand persons, it was estimated
in the evening papers, were collected within sight and sound of the
platform by noon.

As the clocks began to tell the hour, two figures appeared from behind
the statue and came forward, and, in an instant, the murmurs of talk
rose into cheering.

Old Lord Pemberton came first, a grey-haired, upright man, whose father
had been active in denouncing the House of which he was a member on the
occasion of its fall over seventy years ago, and his son had succeeded
him worthily. This man was now a member of the Government, and sat for
Manchester (3); and it was he who was to be chairman on this auspicious
occasion. Behind him came Oliver, bareheaded and spruce, and even at
that distance his mother and wife could see his brisk movement, his
sudden smile and nod as his name emerged from the storm of sound that
surged round the platform. Lord Pemberton came forward, lifted his hand
and made a signal; and in a moment the thin cheering died under the
sudden roll of drums beneath that preluded the Masonic Hymn.

There was no doubt that these Londoners could sing. It was as if a gi