the hour of eight
Lewis was in despair , till he thought of George . It was a desperate chance , but the necessity was urgent , so , shutting himself up for an hour , he wrote the better part of a speech which he entrusted to his friend to prepare . George , having a good memory , laboriously learned it by heart , and clutching the friendly paper and whole-heartedly abusing his chief , he set out grimly to his fate . Promptly at the hour of eight he was deposited at the door of the Masonic Hail in Allerfoot . The place seemed full , and a nervous chairman was hovering around the gate . News of the great man 's defection had already been received , and he was in the extremes of nervousness . He greeted George as a saviour , and led him inside , where some three hundred people crowded a small whitewashed building .