millions, it was the great heart-beats of a mighty nation, it was a welcome
and a warning--a welcome to the descendants of the 'prentice lads of Old
London, a warning to the world. I caught the echoes in my hands, I hugged
them to my heart, I let them pour into my brain, and this is the tale they
told: "Sluggish we are, ye people, slow to wake, strong in the strength of
conscious might. Jibe at us, jeer at us, flout us and threaten us; but
beware the day we turn in our strength. We have sent forth a few of our
children, but they were but as a drop in the ocean. All Britain sent two
hundred and fifty thousand strong men to Africa; London, if need be, can
send five hundred thousand more to the uttermost parts of the earth. Aye,
and when they have died, as these would have died if need be, we can open
our hearts and send five hundred thousand more, and yet be strong for our
home fighting." It was a nation speaking to the nations, and that is the
tale it told. Let the nations take heed and beware, for the language was
the language of truth.

I listened; and lo! through the storm of cheering, through the cries of
women and the strong shouting of men in their prime, I caught another
sound, a sound I knew and loved--the sound of marching men. Music hath
charms to stir the blood and make men mad, but there is no music in all the
earth like the trained tread of men who have marched to battle. I knew the
rhythm of that tread; I knew that the "boys" of Old London were coming, and
my nostrils seemed filled with the fumes of fighting. I looked again, and,
saw them, hard faced, clean limbed, close set, as soldiers should be who
have faced the storm and stress of war, as proud a band as Britain ever
had, soldier and citizen both in one, fit to be a nation's bulwark and a
nation's trust; and in the crowd around them there were a thousand thousand
men as good, as game, as gritty, as they, for they were the children of the
people, the men of the shop-counter, the men of the city office, the men of
every artisan craft, the very vitals of London. They had sprung from the
womb of the city, and the city could give birth to a million more if need
be.

I saw them pass amidst a storm of cheers, and I, who had seen them out on
the African veldt under the foeman's guns, lifted up my voice to cheer them
onward, for well I knew that there was nothing in the gift of England that
they were not worthy of, those children of the "flat caps," those offspring
of the 'prentice lads of London. I knew how they had starved; I knew how
they had suffered through the freezing cold of the African winter; I knew
how gallantly, how uncomplainingly, they had marched with empty bellies and
aching limbs, ready to go anywhere, to do anything, ready to fight, and, if
it were the will of the great God of Battles, ready to lay down their young
lives and die. I knew those things, and, knowing them, gave them a cheer
for the sake of Australia, for the sake of the kinship which binds us as no
bonds of steel could bind us and them. I heard a voice at my knee
whimpering, the voice of a gutter kid, who had dodged in there out of the
way of the police. I looked at his ragged clothes, looked at his grimy
face, looked at his hands, which looked as if they had never looked at
soap, and I said: "What are you yelping for, kiddie?" And he, looking up at
me through his tears, fired a voice at me through his sobs, and said: "I'm
yelping, mister, because I'm only a little 'un, and can't see me mates come
home from the war." Then I laughed, and tossing him up on my shoulder let
him jamb his dirty fist on the only silk hat I possess, whilst he looked at
his "mates" march home; for they were his mates--he was a child of London,
and some day--who knows?--he may be a general.

Printed by
Cassell & Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage,
London, E.C.
10.101.