"And now, my delightful and learned young friends----"
And yet he had stood up for little Robert Stonehouse in those days--had
armed him, and opened doors, and made himself into a stepping-stone to
the freedom he had never known. And had gone under. . . .
"That is all for tonight, men and women. I thank you for your support.
You may rest assured that the fight will go on. The end is in sight,
and if need be I shall lead the last attack in person."
Then he stepped down from his soap-box and swung it on to his shoulders
by means of a cord, and went limping off in a strange and anxious haste.
Stonehouse pushed roughly through the dispersing, purposeless crowd and
caught up with him as he was about to lose himself in a dark network of
little squalid streets. He felt oddly young and diffident, for the
schoolmaster is always the schoolmaster though he be mad and broken.
"Mr. Ricardo--don't you remember me?"
The old man stopped and blinked up uncertainly from under the sodden
brim of his hat. His dirty claw-like hands clutched his coat together
in an instinctive gesture of concealment. He seemed disturbed and even
rather offended at the interruption.
"I--ah--I beg your pardon. No, I'm afraid not. It is--ah--not
unnatural. You understand--I have too many supporters."
"Yes--yes--of course. But you knew me years ago when I was a boy.
Don't you remember Robert Stonehouse?"
It was evident that the name fanned some faint memory which flickered
up for a moment and then went out.
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