but the challenge of the situation roused his combative instincts, and he was loth to stand down. 'We've got to get the biggest crowd, let's have another pitch into them,' he said. But his voice was wearing out, so Stephen Downie mounted the chair and held on for another quarter of an hour.
We then ended our meeting with a final appeal to the audience to buy Commonweal and our Socialist pamphlets. We returned by train to Glasgow full of cheer in our adventure, except when Morris, watching the flare of furnaces and steel retorts through the carriage window—'putting out moon and stars,' as he said—fell into moments of saturnine gloom. On arriving in Glasgow we were hungry and thirsty, and Morris wished to stand us 'drinks round and something to eat' at the station restaurant, but two of our members being teetotallers, he, with a whimsical 'umph,' agreed we should go to a temperance place instead, and there we regaled ourselves on lemonade and sandwiches.
We accompanied Morris to his hotel door, and as he shook hands with us, our carpenter comrade, who had kept himself severely in the background since his misdemeanour in the afternoon, expressed to him the hope that he had not offended him by his behaviour in the train. 'I am much ashamed of myself, and hope you'll forgive me,' he said.
'I'm not the least offended, my friend,' Morris assured him cheerily. 'Why should I be? You didn't mean to offend me, and I admit it did look as if I was trying to pull your leg a bit. Besides you have seen how I can misbehave myself, and I ought to ask you all to forgive me. So goodnight and good luck to you all: 'I have enjoyed the outing hugely.'
