floor consisted entirely of the asbestos cork preparation invented in
America, noiseless, clean, and pleasant to both foot and eye.

Mabel broke the silence.

"And your speech to-morrow?" she asked, taking up her fork.

Oliver brightened a little, and began to discourse.

It seemed that Birmingham was beginning to fret. They were crying out
once more for free trade with America: European facilities were not
enough, and it was Oliver's business to keep them quiet. It was useless,
he proposed to tell them, to agitate until the Eastern business was
settled: they must not bother the Government with such details just now.
He was to tell them, too, that the Government was wholly on their side;
that it was bound to come soon.

"They are pig-headed," he added fiercely; "pig-headed and selfish; they
are like children who cry for food ten minutes before dinner-time: it is
bound to come if they will wait a little."

"And you will tell them so?"

"That they are pig-headed? Certainly."

Mabel looked at her husband with a pleased twinkle in her eyes. She knew
perfectly well that his popularity rested largely on his outspokenness:
folks liked to be scolded and abused by a genial bold man who danced and
gesticulated in a magnetic fury; she liked it herself.