When I went to Hyde Park on a certain Sunday rain was falling and
the crowds were not so large as usual, a bored policeman on duty
in this outdoor forum told me; still, at that, there must have
been two or three thousand listeners in sight and not less than
twelve speakers. These latter balanced themselves on small portable
platforms placed in rows, with such short spaces between them that
their voices intermingled confusingly. In front of each orator
stood his audience; sometimes they applauded what he said in a
sluggish British way, and sometimes they asked him questions
designed to baffle or perplex him--heckling, I believe this is
called--but there was never any suggestion of disorder and never
any violent demonstration for or against a statement made by him.
At the end of the line nearest the Arch, under a flary light, stood
an old bearded man having the look on his face of a kindly but
somewhat irritated moo-cow. At the moment I drew near he was
having a long and involved argument with another controversialist
touching on the sense of the word tabernacle as employed Scripturally,
one holding it to mean the fleshly tenement of the soul and the
other an actual place of worship. The old man had two favorite
words--behoove and emit--but behoove was evidently his choice.
As an emitter he was only fair, but he was the best behoover I
ever saw anywhere.
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