Amazingly rebellious things took flight in his imagination, and as I sat there enthralled by the marvel of his words and his wonderful personality, the room with its antique emblems seemed to become more and more remote from the outside world. I remember noticing how the tobacco smoke from our pipes hung about the ceiling in dim serpent-like coils, and my enjoying a feeling of mystery and adventure much as a school-boy might feel in a smuggler's cave or on a pirate's quarter-deck.
During the last thirty years of his life it was an established custom with Morris to breakfast every Sunday morning with Burne-Jones, when both were in town. This custom, which was one of his most cherished enjoyments, and one of the few practices of personal regimen which did not give way to the urgency of Socialist engagements, prevented his joining regularly in the Sunday morning propaganda of the movement. Owing, however, to the occasional absence from town of Burne-Jones, and to the fact that Morris often imposed on himself the self-denying ordinance of shortening his after-breakfast chats with his friend, there were for several years few Sunday forenoons that Morris did not take part in the Hammersmith meeting, or speak in Hyde Park, Victoria Park, or elsewhere in London.
The Sunday morning of my visit was not one of his Burne-Jones mornings, and he was scheduled as one of the speakers at Hammersmith Bridge, the favourite Sunday-morning pitch of the branch. Shortly after ten o'clock Emery Walker and one or two other members called in, in order to take with them the literature and banner for the meeting, and together we all (the callers-in, Morris, May Morris, and myself) sallied forth for our rendezvous. The banner of the branch, designed by Crane and worked by May Morris, was a handsome ensign, and Morris, who, as we know, was immensely fond of all communal regalia, bore it furled on its pole over his shoulder—and a fine banner-bearer he was to see.
It was a glorious morning, and the propaganda strength
