Prebble was earnest, too. Perhaps even more so than Comrade
Wotherspoon. He was handicapped to some extent, however, by not having
a palate. This gave to his profoundest thoughts a certain weirdness, as
if they had been uttered in an unknown tongue. The crowd was thickest
round his platform. The grown-up section plainly regarded him as a
comedian, pure and simple, and roared with happy laughter when he urged
them to march upon Park Lane and loot the same without mercy or
scruple. The children were more doubtful. Several had broken down, and
been led away in tears.

When Mr Waller got up to speak on platform number three, his audience
consisted at first only of Psmith, Mike, and a fox-terrier. Gradually
however, he attracted others. After wavering for a while, the crowd
finally decided that he was worth hearing. He had a method of his own.
Lacking the natural gifts which marked Comrade Prebble out as an
entertainer, he made up for this by his activity. Where his colleagues
stood comparatively still, Mr Waller behaved with the vivacity
generally supposed to belong only to peas on shovels and cats on hot
bricks. He crouched to denounce the House of Lords. He bounded from
side to side while dissecting the methods of the plutocrats. During an
impassioned onslaught on the monarchical system he stood on one leg and
hopped. This was more the sort of thing the crowd had come to see.
Comrade Wotherspoon found himself deserted, and even Comrade Prebble's
shortcomings in the way of palate were insufficient to keep his flock
together. The entire strength of the audience gathered in front of the
third platform.

Mike, separated from Psmith by the movement of the crowd, listened with
a growing depression. That feeling which attacks a sensitive person
sometimes at the theatre when somebody is making himself ridiculous on