I made no mistake about that."
The little steward admitted us to a sort of lobby or improvised
cloak-room stowed somewhere beneath the platform. While helping us
off with our coats he told us that the audience was satisfactory
"considering the weather." "A night like this isn't calculated to
fetch out doubtfuls."
"It has fetched out one, anyhow," said I. "This is Professor Foe, of
your University College."
"Greatly honoured, sir, I am sure!" The little man bowed to Foe, and
turned again to me: "Your friends, Sir Roderick, will accompany you
on the platform, of course. Shall we go in at once? Or--at this
moment Mr. Jenkinson is up. He has been speaking for twenty
minutes."
"--And has just started his peroration," said I; for though it came
muffled through the boarding, I had recognised Mr. Jenkinson's voice,
and the oration to which in other parts of London I had already
listened twice. I could time it. "There's no hurry," I said.
"Jenkinson--good man, Jenkinson--has finished with the tram-service
statistics, and will now for a brief two minutes lift the whole
question on to a higher plane.
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