"
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.
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