The Burning Spear | Page 9

where people
congregate?"
"They don't."
"Do they never hold public meetings here?"

"Ah!" said the dustman mysteriously.
"I wish to address them on the subject of babies."
"Bill! Gent abaht babies. Where'd he better go?"
The man addressed, however, who carried a bag of tools, did not stop.
"You,'ear?" said the dustman, and urging his horse, passed on.
"How rude!" thought Mr. Lavender. Something cold and wet was
pressed against his hand, he felt a turmoil, and saw Blink moving round
and round him, curved like a horseshoe, with a bit of string dangling
from her white neck. At that moment of discouragement the sight of
one who believed in him gave Mr. Lavender nothing but pleasure.
"How wonderful dogs are!" he murmured. The sheep-dog responded by
bounds and ear-splitting barks, so that two boys and a little girl
wheeling a perambulator stopped to look and listen.
"She is like Mercury," thought Mr. Lavender; and taking advantage of
her interest in his hat, which she had knocked off in her effusions, he
placed his hand on her head and crumpled her ear. The dog passed into
an hypnotic trance, broken by soft grumblings of pleasure. "The most
beautiful eyes in the world!" thought Mr. Lavender, replacing his hat;
"the innocence and goodness of her face are entrancing."
In his long holland coat, with his wide-brimmed felt hat all dusty, and
the crutch-handled stick in his hand, he had already arrested the
attention of five boys, the little girl with the perambulator, a postman, a
maid-servant, and three old ladies.
"What a beautiful dog yours is!" said one of the old ladies; "dear
creature! Are you a shepherd?"
Mr. Lavender removed his hat.
"No, madam," he said; "a public speaker."
"How foolish of me!" replied the old lady.
"Not at all, madam; the folly is mine." And Mr. Lavender bowed. "I
have come here to give an address on babies."
The old lady looked at him shrewdly, and, saying something in a low
voice to her companions, passed on, to halt again a little way off.
In the meantime the rumour that there was a horse down in the
Clemenceau Road had spread rapidly, and more boys, several little girls,
and three soldiers in blue, with red ties, had joined the group round Mr.
Lavender, to whom there seemed something more than providential in
this rapid assemblage. Looking round him for a platform from which to

address them, he saw nothing but the low wall of the little villa garden
outside which he was standing. Mounting on this, therefore, and firmly
grasping the branch of a young acacia tree to steady himself, he stood
upright, while Blink, on her hind legs, scratched at the wall, whining
and sniffing his feet.
Encouraged by the low murmur of astonishment, which swelled idly
into a shrill cheer, Mr. Lavender removed his hat, and spoke as follows:
"Fellow Britons, at this crisis in the history of our country I make no
apology for addressing myself to the gathering I see around me. Here,
in the cradle of patriotism and the very heart of Movements, I may
safely assume that you are aware of the importance of Man-power. At a
moment when every man of a certain age and over is wanted at the
front, and every woman of marrigeable years is needed in hospitals, in
factories, on the land, or where not, we see as never before the
paramount necessity of mobilizing the forces racial progress and
increasing the numbers of our population. Not a man, not a woman can
be spared from the great task in which they are now engaged, of
defeating the common enemy. Side by side with our American cousins,
with la belle France, and the Queen of the Adriatic, we are fighting to
avert the greatest menace which ever threatened civilization. Our cruel
enemies are strong and ruthless. While I have any say in this matter, no
man or woman shall be withdrawn from the sacred cause of victory;
better they should die to the last unit than that we should take our hands
from the plough. But, ladies and gentlemen, we must never forget that
in the place of every one who dies we must put two. Do not be content
with ordinary measures; these are no piping times of peace. Never was
there in the history of this country such a crying need for--for twins, if I
may put it picturesquely. In each family, in each home where there are
no families, let there be two babies where there was one, for thus only
can we triumph over the devastation of this war." At this moment the
now considerable audience, which had hitherto been silent, broke into a
shrill "'Ear, 'ear!" and Mr. Lavender, taking his hand from the acacia