Baines was earning
?300 a year at this time, and had a wife and four children, but
he will not admit that he did anything at all out of the common.
The case of Sedley comes up for consideration at the next
committee meeting. Sedley's rich uncle, a cantankerous old man,
insulted him grossly; there was a quarrel; and the old man left,
vowing to revenge himself by disinheriting his nephew and
bequeathing his money to a cats' home. He died on his way to his
solicitors, and Sedley was told of his good fortune in good legal
English. He replied, "What on earth do you take me for? I
wouldn't touch a penny. Give it to the cats' home or any blessed
thing you like." Sedley, of course, will be elected as an
ordinary member, but as there is a strong feeling on the
committee that no decent man could have done anything else, his
election as a life member is improbable.
Though there are one or two other members like Baines and Sedley,
most of them are men who have refused professional openings
rather than actual money. There are, for instance, half a dozen
journalists and authors. Now a journalist, before he can be
elected, must have a black-list of papers for which he will
refuse to write. A concocted wireless message in the Daily Blank,
which subsequent events proved to have been invented deliberately
for the purpose of raking in ha'pennies, so infuriated Henderson
(to take a case) that he has pledged himself never to write a
line for any paper owned by the same proprietors.
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