Conservative working man has thrust his hat upon his head and is off
to the nearest public-house, muttering oaths.

Mr. Cullen rises, at the same time rises Mr. Cowes. These two
gentlemen are fated to rise simultaneously. They scowl at each
other. Mr. Cullen begins to speak, and Mr. Cowes, after a circular
glance of protest, resumes his seat. The echoes tell that we are in
for oratory with a vengeance. Mr. Cullen is a short, stout man, very
seedily habited, with a great rough head of hair, an aquiline nose,
lungs of vast power. His vein is King Cambyses'; he tears passion to
tatters; he roars leonine; he is your man to have at the pamper'd
jades of Asia! He has got hold of a new word, and that the verb to
'exploit.' I am exploited, thou art exploited,--_he_ exploits! Who?
Why, such men as that English duke whom the lecturer gripped and
flagellated. The English duke is Mr. Cullen's bugbear; never a
speech from Mr. Cullen but that duke is most horribly mauled. His
ground. rents,--yah! Another word of which Mr. Cullen is fond is
'strattum,'--usually spelt and pronounced with but one t midway. You
and I have the misfortune to belong to a social 'strattum' which is
trampled flat and hard beneath the feet of the landowners. Mr.
Cullen rises to such a point of fury that one dreads the
consequences--to himself. Already the chairman is on his feet,
intimating in dumb show that the allowed ten minutes have elapsed;
there is no making the orator hear. At length his friend who sits by
him fairly grips his coat-tails and brings him to a sitting posture,
amid mirthful tumult. Mr. Cullen joins in the mirth, looks as though
he had never been angry in his life. And till next Sunday comes
round he will neither speak nor think of the social question.

Mr. Cowes is unopposed. After the preceding enthusiast, the voice of