At about eight o'clock large numbers of Metropolitan police sallied out of their barracks and tore down the last batch of placards.

Next morning fresh ones were posted up, each of which bore the single word, 'Why ?' The bill-stickers were highly pleased, and many of them were arrested for drunkenness.

Mr.O'Rourke was much less pleased, for he began to guess what the answer was likely to be, and how it would affect his chances of securing a satisfactory collection.

The officials were perplexed.

They suspected the 'Why ?' of containing within its three letters some hideous sedition, but it was not possible to deal vigorously with what might, after all, be only the cunning novelty of some advertising manufacturer.
More telegrams harried Mr.Chesney, but before any definite course of action had been decided on the morning of the Rotunda meeting arrived, and with it an answer to the multifarious 'Whys': Because O'Rourke wants all the money to spend in the London restaurants.' There was a great deal of laughter, and many people, quite uninterested in politics, determined to go to the meeting in hopes of more amusement.
When Mr.O'Rourke took the chair the hall was crowded to its utmost capacity.