In five minutes he has gripped
his audience with his tale of things that are new to most of them,
quite outside of their experience. He lifts a curtain as it were, and
shows them the awful misery that lies often at their very office
doors, and the duty which is theirs to aid the fallen and the
suffering. It is a long address, very long, but none of the hearers
are wearied.
At the end of it I had cause to meet him in his office about a certain
matter. He had stripped off his coat, and stood in the red jersey of
his uniform, the perspiration still streaming from him after the
exertion of his prolonged effort in that packed hall. As he spoke he
ate his simple meal of vegetables (mushrooms they were, I remember),
and tea, for, like most of his family, he never touches meat. Either
he must see me while he ate or not at all; and when there is work to
be done, General Booth does not think of convenience or of rest;
moreover, as usual, there was a train to catch. One of his
peculiarities is that he seems always to be starting for somewhere,
often at the other side of the world.
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