patronizing. They are Bohemians among aristocrats and
aristocrats among Bohemians.

Johnnie is just beginning to be noted at their meetings as a debater of
some importance. In fact, after the lecture, he will rise and deliver
questions so shrewd and penetrating that the young folk of Sidcup and
Blackheath and Hampstead have found it a saving to their personal
dignity to give him a seat on the platform, where, of course, he is not
only rendered harmless to them but is an encouragement to other sons of
the soil in the audience.

It is in the region of the Island that most of the battles take place
between organized labour and the apostles of free labour. Let there be
any industrial trouble of any kind, and down upon the district swoop
dozens of fussy futilitarians, to argue, exhort, bully, and agitate
generally. Fabians, Social Democrats, Clarionettes, Syndicalists,
Extremists, Arbitrators, Union leaders, Christian Care Committees--gaily
they trip along and take charge of the hapless workers, until the poor
fellows or girls are hustled this way and that, driven, coerced,
commanded, and counter-commanded till, in desperation, they take refuge,
one and all, in the nearest bar. Then the Fabians, the Social Democrats,
the Clarionettes, the Syndicalists, the Extremists, the Arbitrators, and
the Union leaders return to Blackheath and Sidcup and Bedford Park,
crying that it is useless to attempt to help the poor; they won't be
helped: they are hopeless dipsomaniacs.

Here were organized those Unemployed marches which made our streets so
cheery a few years ago. I once joined Johnnie on a tramp with one of
these regiments, and it was the most spiritless march I have ever been
in. The men didn't want to march. It was the Social Service darlings who
wanted to form them into a pretty procession, and lead them all round
London as actual proof of the Good that was being done among the Right
People. We started at nine o'clock on a typically London morning. The
day was neither cold nor warm, neither light nor dark. The sky was an
even stretch of watery grey, and the faces that passed us were not
kindly. Mostly they suggested impaired digestions or guilty consciences.
We had a guard of honour of about ten hefty constables, and for us, as
for the great ones of the town, the traffic was held up that we might
pass. Among the crowd our appointed petitioners, with labelled
collecting-boxes, worked with subdued zeal, and above the rumble of t