About nine o'clock
It was as if a flock of foolish sheep placed themselves under the protection of a pack of ravening wolves . Several times the small band of Socialists narrowly escaped being mobbed , but they succeeded in disposing of most of their leaflets without any serious trouble . Towards the latter part of one evening Barrington and Owen became separated from the others , and shortly afterwards these two lost each other in the crush . About nine o'clock , Barrington was in a large Liberal crowd , listening to the same hired orator who had spoken a few evenings before on the hill -- the man with the scar on his forehead . The crowd was applauding him loudly and Barrington again fell to wondering where he had seen this man before . As on the previous occasion , this speaker made no reference to Socialism , confining himself to other matters . Barrington examined him closely , trying to recall under what circumstances they had met previously , and presently he remembered that this was one of the Socialists who had come with the band of cyclists into the town that Sunday morning , away back at the beginning of the summer , the man who had come afterwards with the van , and who had been struck down by a stone while attempting to speak from the platform of the van , the man who had been nearly killed by the upholders of the capitalist system .