They paid him real deference and they flocked to hear him.

Cruickshank was a second attraction; and Lorne himself, even at this stage of the proceedings, "drew" without abatement.

They knew young Murchison well enough; he had gone in and out among them all his life; yet since he had come before them in this new capacity a curious interest had gathered about him.

People looked at him as if he had developed something they did not understand, and perhaps he had; he was in touch with the Idea.

They listened with an intense personal interest in him which, no doubt, went to obscure what he said: perhaps a less absorbing personality would have carried the Idea further.