Indeed, before he was
ready, the porter came up and said that a gentleman had called for him,
and was waiting for him in the coffee-room.
"Ask him what he will have for breakfast, and let him go on. I shall be
down presently."
When Brand did at length go down, he found that his visitor had frankly
accepted this permission, and had before him a large plate of
corned-beef, with a goodly tankard of beer. Mr. John Molyneux, although
he was a great authority among English workmen generally, and especially
among the trades-unionists of the North, had little about him of the
appearance of the sleek-haired demagogue as that person is usually
represented to us. He was a stout, yeoman-looking man, with a frosty-red
face and short silver-white whiskers; he had keen, shrewd blue eyes, and
a hand that gave a firm grip. The fact is, that Molyneux had in early
life been a farmer, and a well-to-do-farmer. But he had got smitten with
the writings of Cobbett, and he began to write too. Then he took to
lecturing--on the land laws, on Robert Owenism, on the Church of
England, but more especially on co-operation.
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