a few facetious references to the episode of the Countess’s arrival, and brought the house down by saying that if he did his duty he would arrest both the Countess and Denry for driving to the common danger.  When he sat down, amid tempestuous applause, there was a hitch.  According to the official programme Sir Jehoshophat Dain was to have seconded the vote, and Sir Jee was not there.  All that remained of Sir Jee was his chair.  The Mayor of Hanbridge looked round about, trying swiftly to make up his mind what was to be done, and Denry heard him whisper to another mayor for advice.

“Shall I do it?” Denry whispered, and by at once rising relieved the Mayor from the necessity of coming to a decision.

Impossible to say why Denry should have risen as he did, without any warning.  Ten seconds before, five seconds before, he himself had not the dimmest idea that he was about to address the meeting.  All that can be said is that he was subject to these attacks of the unexpected.

Once on his legs he began to suffer, for he had never before been on his legs on a platform, or even on a platform at all.  He could see nothing whatever except a cloud that had mysteriously and with frightful suddenness filled the room.  And through this cloud he could feel that hundreds and hundreds of eyes were piercingly fixed upon him.  A voice was saying inside him—­“What a fool you are!  What a fool you are!  I always told you you were a fool!” And his heart was beating as it had never beat, and his forehead was damp, his throat distressingly dry, and one foot nervously tap-tapping on the floor.  This condition lasted for something like ten hours, during which time the eyes continued to pierce the cloud and him with patient, obstinate cruelty.

Denry heard some one talking.  It was himself.

The Superintendent had said:  “I have very great pleasure in proposing the vote of thanks to the Countess of Chell.”

And so Denry heard himself saying:  “I have very great pleasure in seconding the vote of thanks to the Countess of Chell.”

He could not think of anything else to say.  And there was a pause, a real pause, not a pause merely in Denry’s sick imagination.

Then the cloud was dissipated.  And Denry himself said to the audience of policemen, with his own natural tone, smile and gesture, colloquially, informally, comically: 

“Now then!  Move along there, please!  I’m not going to say any more!”

And for a signal he put his hands in the position for applauding.  And sat down.

He had tickled the stout ribs of every bobby in the place.  The applause surpassed all previous applause.  The most staid ornaments of the platform had to laugh.  People nudged each other and explained that it was “that chap Machin from Bursley,” as if to imply that that chap Machin from Bursley never let a day pass without doing something striking and humorous.  The Mayor was still smiling when he put the vote to the meeting, and the Countess was still smiling when she responded.