One among
them would have spoken, but checked himself, in obedience to the
stern glance and pressure on his arm, received from the leader. Mr.
Carson sat down, and a friend instantly got up to second the motion.
It was carried, but far from unanimously. The chairman announced it
to the delegates (who had been once more turned out of the room for
a division). They received it with deep brooding silence, but spake
never a word, and left the room without even a bow.
Now there had been some by-play at this meeting, not recorded in the
Manchester newspapers, which gave an account of the more regular
part of the transaction.
While the men had stood grouped near the door, on their first
entrance, Mr. Harry Carson had taken out his silver pencil, and had
drawn an admirable caricature of them--lank, ragged, dispirited, and
famine-stricken. Underneath he wrote a hasty quotation from the fat
knight's well-known speech in Henry IV. He passed it to one of his
neighbours, who acknowledged the likeness instantly, and by him it
was sent round to others, who all smiled and nodded their heads.
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