"
"One more question," said I--for by this time we had reached the edge
of the crowd. "Do you happen to know if Professor Foe was in the
building at the time?"
"He was not, sir. He had locked up for the day and gone home to his
private house. They fetched him by 'phone. . . . I know, sir, having
received instructions to pass him in: which I did, under escort.
You needn't be anxious about him, if he's a friend of yours."
But I was.
The crowd, as the Sergeant had promised, was curious rather than
vicious; much the sort of crowd that the King's coach will fetch out,
or a big fire; and from this I augured hopefully (correctly, too, as
it proved) that the actual rioters had been little more than a
handful, excited by Saturday's beer and park-oratory. . . .
The average Londoner takes very little truck in municipal politics,
as I'd been deploring for a fortnight on public platforms. It costs
you all your time to get one in ten of him to attend a public
meeting: he's cynical and sits with his back to the ring where a few
earnest men and women, and a number of cranks, are putting it up
against the Vested Interests and the Press.
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