I was merely the victim of a man much shrewder than myself. I confess that the contumely heaped upon me has not caused me an hour's wakefulness, but if you ladies add a vote of censure, then shall I be indeed desolate."
Many of the delegation laughed, and it was evident his young lordship had nothing to fear from that quarter. The lady with grey hair now spoke, very gently and very charmingly:
"I am sure I express the sentiment of this Committee when I say we are all glad to know you invested in an American railway speculation solely to benefit a fellow-creature whom you supposed to be in distress. We came here hoping to show you a better use for your money than that to which you had devoted it."
"You mean, madam, that I should contribute to the cause of Woman's Suffrage?"
"Yes."
"That I am very pleased to do, and if you assist me by naming the amount, I will send a cheque to your treasurer at once."
"On behalf of my fellow-workers, not only of those here, but of the thousands labouring elsewhere for our cause, I thank you for your great generosity. Our mission now being accomplished, I shall detain you no longer than it takes to tender our gratitude for your kind reception of us."
The young man was rather confused as he listened to these words, and the slight ripple of applause they called forth, but the tension of the situation was relieved by the young woman who carried the banner rising to her feet.
"I thought our chairwoman would, perhaps, embody those sentiments, with which we all agree, in a formal vote of thanks, and that in seconding this motion I should find opportunity for speaking on a subject very interesting to me. I gathered from the Earl of Stranleigh's remarks that he has given some thought towards the distribution of money to aid the down-trodden and the afflicted. If this is so, I should like to ask what success has followed his philanthropy?"
Stranleigh laughed a little, and tried to shake off his embarrassment.
"My efforts can hardly be dignified by such a term as philanthropy. It is a question that bristles with difficulties. When I give a sovereign to a sober ragamuffin, if I meet him again before the money is spent I regret to find he is then usually a drunk ragamuffin. In a larger way, where I depend on my own judgment, as was the case with the American I have spoken about, my effort has merely meant the discomfiture of people unknown to me that I would not willingly have injured. This is doubtless because I am rather a muddle-headed person, and a muddle-headed person with good intentions and plenty of money seems to be a distinct danger to the community. I try to inform myself of what wiser people have done, but my search has not proved encouraging.
"Through the genius of the late Sir Walter Besant a great people's palace was erected in the East End, which, I am told, has failed in its object on account of the abstention of those it was intended to benefit. That gracious lady whose memory is revered by us all, the late Baroness Burdett-Coutts, carried out what seemed a most practical project by building a huge market in the East End, where poor people might obtain good food at reasonable prices, but she merely disturbed, temporarily, the costermonger trade, and I think the great building, if not abandoned, is used for other purposes than the one for which it was erected. The poor, apparently, would have none of it.
"The other day, as I drove from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, I noticed along the road great iron pipes being ruined by rust, and learned from my dragoman that years before the Baroness had bestowed a very large sum of money for bringing the pure water of Solomon's Wells to Jerusalem, which has always depended for its supply on the rains, gathered into filthy tanks. The bulk of the money had been stolen by Turkish officials, and these broken, rusty pipes were the useless result of a most beneficent plan. So you understand my difficulty; I am quite willing to give, if assured the donations would accomplish any useful purpose."
"Don't you think," replied the young woman, "that these failures are due to the indolence and ignorance of the giver? The man with money, unless he has made it himself, is indolent, and therefore, to gain information, does not take the trouble a business person would expend before making an investment."
"Doubtless, madam, that is very true in my own case, for I am both indolent and ignorant. Money seems as dangerous to meddle with as dynamite. I read in the bankruptcy proceedings, the other day, of a young and industrious mechanic earning good wages, whose uncle in Australia left him sixteen thousand pounds. That sum lasted him a year, or nearly so, and when it was spent he got amazingly into debt, and now is adjudged a bankrupt, with no chance of his creditors receiving a penny. A year ago he was a useful and estimable citizen; to-day he is a vicious loafer, a human derelict."
"That may be an exceptional case," said the confident one.
"Perhaps. Have you any suggestion to make?"
"It seems to me, in the instances you cited, that neither the Baroness nor Sir Walter took the trouble to find out what the poor really wanted or needed. They bestowed upon them, therefore, something they did not require. Now, I think a man with time at his disposal should examine the matter, as I may say, from the ground up. He might take an individual, study him, discover what was really needed, and supply the deficiency."
"Madam, you describe exactly what I did in the case of Mr. Bannerdale, alias Garner, yet see how narrowly I missed a vote of censure from you for that very action."
"My lord, have you ever seen the play, written by one of us, entitled 'Diana of Dobson's'?"
"I have not enjoyed that advantage."
"It deals very cleverly with the subject we are discussing."
Very well; I shall secure a box at once."
Before the banner girl could say anything further, the lady with grey hair rose.
"I think," she said, smiling, "that the Earl of Stranleigh has earned the formal vote of thanks you suggested, and so, taking it as proposed and seconded, I beg to tender it, and bid him farewell."
Saying this, she marshalled her following, and departed.
When Lord Stranleigh left Kingsway Theatre he was thinking less of the employment problem in the play than about its acting. The American actress, Miss Lena Ashwell, had been superb, and Norman McKinnel, whom he considered Britain's greatest tragedian, caused him to wonder why McKinnel, having the production of the piece in his own hands, had chosen for himself the humble rôle of policeman, appearing only for five minutes or thereabouts in the darkened picture of the last act, which represented the outcasts dozing on the benches of the Thames Embankment.
Stranleigh walked down Kingsway to the Strand, entered the Gaiety Restaurant, and treated himself to a well-chosen supper. When he emerged, remembering the last scene of the play, he strolled down Arundel Street to the Thames Embankment, intended to be London's chief boulevard, although this thoroughfare, bordered by great luxurious hotels, becomes after nightfall an out-door bedroom for the penniless; millionaire and pauper sleeping within a stone's throw of one another. However well the Thames Embankment may compare with a Parisian boulevard during the day, all the brightness of the latter is absent at night, for here no cafés and restaurants face the river.
Stranleigh's first impression was how well the actual benches of the Embankment imitated their counterfeit on the stage. Even the slow policeman that passed him walked with McKinnel's measured step. The young nobleman aroused the first sleeper, asked a few questions, and receiving replies that he didn't in the least believe, presented the derelict with a sovereign, telling him to get something to eat, and a more comfortable bed. This was repeated again and again, and monotonous iteration indicated that no denizen of the Embankment was there through any fault of his own.
Stranleigh knew that many a man who later became famous spent his first night in London on the Embankment, and he hoped that by chance he might succour some genius, yet he fancied in such case his benefaction would not have been so greedily accepted as it was by these outcasts. He yearned for someone to tell him to go to the devil and leave the slumberer to his rest, but he met no such cheering indication of independence combined with dire necessity.
The slow policeman, marching by the parapet, paused and watched him with