"You are unanimously resolved, then," the Bishop asked, "to take this
last step?"

There was a little chorus of assent. Fenn leaned forward in his place.

"Everything is ready," he announced. "Our machinery is perfect. Our
agents in every city await the mandate."

"But do you imagine that those last means will be necessary?" the Bishop
enquired anxiously.

"Most surely I do," Fenn replied. "Remember that if the people make
peace for the country, it is the people who will expect to govern the
country. It will be a notice to the politicians to quit. They know that.
It is my belief that they, will resist, tooth and nail."

Bright glanced at his watch.

"The Prime Minister," he announced, "will be at Downing Street until
nine o'clock. It is now seven o'clock. I propose that we proceed without
any further delay to the election of our representative."

"The voting cards," Fenn pointed out, "are before each person. Every
one has two votes, which must be for two different representatives. The
cards should then be folded, and I propose that the Bishop, who is not a
candidate, collect them. As I read the unwritten rules of this Congress,
every one here is eligible except the Bishop, Miss Abbeway, Mr. Orden
and Mr. Furley."

There was a little murmur. Phineas Cross leaned forward in his place.

"Here, what's that?" he exclaimed. "The Bishop, and Miss Abbeway, we all
know, are outside the running. Mr. Furley, too, represents the educated
Socialists, and though he is with us in this, he is not really Labour.
But Mr. Orden--Paul Fiske, eh? That's a different matter, isn't it?"

"Mr. Orden," Fenn pronounced slowly, "is a literary man. He is a
sympathiser with our cause, but he is not of it."

"If any man has read the message which Paul Fiske has written with a pen
of gold for us," Phineas Cross declared, "and can still say that he is
not one of us, why, he must be beside himself. I say that Mr. Orden
is the brains and the soul of our movement. He brought life and
encouragement into the north of England with the first article he ever
wrote. Since then there has not been a man whom the Labour Party that I
know anything of has looked up to and worshipped as they have done him."

"It's true," David Sands broke in, "every word of it. There's no one has
written for Labour like him. If he isn't Labour, then we none of us
are. I don't care whether he is the son of an earl, or a plasterer's
apprentice, as I was. He's the right