Chapter: Most of the thirty or so little tables covered by red cloths with a white
design stood ranged at right angles to the deep brown wainscoting of the
underground hall.  Bronze chandeliers with many globes depended from the
low, slightly vaulted ceiling, and the fresco paintings ran flat and dull
all round the walls without windows, representing scenes of the chase and
of outdoor revelry in mediaeval costumes.  Varlets in green jerkins
brandished hunting knives and raised on high tankards of foaming beer.

"Unless I am very much mistaken, you are the man who would know the
inside of this confounded affair," said the robust Ossipon, leaning over,
his elbows far out on the table and his feet tucked back completely under
his chair.  His eyes stared with wild eagerness.

An upright semi-grand piano near the door, flanked by two palms in pots,
executed suddenly all by itself a valse tune with aggressive virtuosity.
The din it raised was deafening.  When it ceased, as abruptly as it had
started, the be-spectacled, dingy little man who faced Ossipon behind a
heavy glass mug full of beer emitted calmly what had the sound of a
general proposition.

"In principle what one of us may or may not know as to any given fact
can't be a matter for inquiry to the others."

"Certainly not," Comrade Ossipon agreed in a quiet undertone.  "In
principle."

With his big florid face held between his hands he continued to stare
hard, while the dingy little man in spectacles coolly took a drink of
beer and stood the glass mug back on the table.  His flat, large ears
departed widely from the sides of his skull, which looked frail enough
for Ossipon to crush between thumb and forefinger; the dome of the
forehead seemed to rest on the rim of the spectacles; the flat cheeks, of
a greasy, unhealthy complexion, were merely smudged by the miserable
poverty of a thin dark whisker.  The lamentable inferiority of the whole
physique was made ludicrous by the supremely self-confident bearing of
the individual.  His speech was curt, and he had a particularly
impressive manner of keeping silent.

Ossipon spoke again from between his hands in a mutter.

"Have you been out much to-day?"

"No.  I stayed in bed all the morning," answered the other.  "Why?"

"Oh!  Nothing," said Ossipon, gazing earnestly and quivering inwardly
with the desire to find out something, but obviously intimidated by the
little man's overwhelming air of unconcern.  When talking with this
comrade--which happened but rarely--the big Ossipon suffered from a sense
of moral and even physical insignificance.  However, he ventured another
question.  "Did you walk down here?"

"No; omnibus," the little man answered readily enough.  He lived far away
in Islington, in a small house down a shabby street, littered with straw
and dirty paper, where out of school hours a troop of assorted children
ran and squabbled with a shrill, joyless, rowdy clamour.  His single back
room, remarkable for having an extremely large cupboard, he rented
furnished from two elderly spinsters, dressmakers in a humble way with a
clientele of servant girls mostly.  He had a heavy padlock put on the
cupboard, but otherwise he was a model lodger, giving no trouble, and
requiring practically no attendance.  His oddities were that he insisted
on being present when his room was being swept, and that when he went out
he locked his door, and took the key away with him.

Ossipon had a vision of these round black-rimmed spectacles progressing
along the streets on the top of an omnibus, their self-confident glitter
falling here and there on the walls of houses or lowered upon the heads
of the unconscious stream of people on the pavements.  The ghost of a
sickly smile altered the set of Ossipon's thick lips at the thought of
the walls nodding, of people running for life at the sight of those
spectacles.  If they had only known!  What a panic!  He murmured
interrogatively: "Been sitting long here?"

"An hour or more," answered the other negligently, and took a pull at the
dark beer.  All his movements--the way he grasped the mug, the act of
drinking, the way he set the heavy glass down and folded his arms--had a
firmness, an assured precision which made the big and muscular Ossipon,
leaning forward with staring eyes and protruding lips, look the picture
of eager indecision.

"An hour," he said.  "Then it may be you haven't heard yet the news I've
heard just now--in the street.  Have you?"

The little man shook his head negatively the least bit.  But as he gave
no indication of curiosity Ossipon ventured to add that he had heard it
just outside the place.  A newspaper boy had yelled the thing under his
very nose, and not being prepared for anything of that sort, he was very
much startled and upset.  He had to come in there with a dry mouth.  "I
never thought of finding you here," he added, murmuring steadily, with
his elbows planted on the table.

"I come here sometimes," said the other, preserving his provoking
coolness of demeanour.

"It's wonderful that you of all people should have heard nothing of it,"
the big Ossipon continued.  His eyelids snapped nervously upon the
shining eyes.  "You of all people," he repeated tentatively.  This
obvious restraint argued an incredible and inexplicable timidity of the
big fellow before the calm little man, who again lifted the glass mug,
drank, and put it down with brusque and assured movements.  And that was
all.

Ossipon after waiting for something, word or sign, that did not come,
made an effort to assume a sort of indifference.

"Do you," he said, deadening his voice still more, "give your stuff to
anybody who's up to asking you for it?"

"My absolute rule is never to refuse anybody--as long as I have a pinch
by me," answered the little man with decision.

"That's a principle?" commented Ossipon.

"It's a principle."

"And you think it's sound?"

The large round spectacles, which gave a look of staring self-confidence
to the sallow face, confronted Ossipon like sleepless, unwinking orbs
flashing a cold fire.

"Perfectly.  Always.  Under every circumstance.  What could stop me?  Why
should I not?  Why should I think twice about it?"

Ossipon gasped, as it were, discreetly.

"Do you mean to say you would hand it over to a 'teck' if one came to ask
you for your wares?"

The other smiled faintly.

"Let them come and try it on, and you will see," he said.  "They know me,
but I know also every one of them.  They won't come near me--not they."

His thin livid lips snapped together firmly.  Ossipon began to argue.

"But they could send someone--rig a plant on you.  Don't you see?  Get
the stuff from you in that way, and then arrest you with the proof in
their hands."

"Proof of what?  Dealing in explosives without a licence perhaps."  This
was meant for a contemptuous jeer, though the expression of the thin,
sickly face remained unchanged, and the utterance was negligent.  "I
don't think there's one of them anxious to make that arrest.  I don't
think they could get one of them to apply for a warrant.  I mean one of
the best.  Not one."

"Why?" Ossipon asked.

"Because they know very well I take care never to part with the last
handful of my wares.  I've it always by me."  He touched the breast of
his coat lightly.  "In a thick glass flask," he added.

"So I have been told," said Ossipon, with a shade of wonder in his voice.
"But I didn't know if--"

"They know," interrupted the little man crisply, leaning against the
straight chair back, which rose higher than his fragile head.  "I shall
never be arrested.  The game isn't good enough for any policeman of them
all.  To deal with a man like me you require sheer, naked, inglorious
heroism."  Again his lips closed with a self-confident snap.  Ossipon
repressed a movement of impatience.

"Or recklessness--or simply ignorance," he retorted.  "They've only to
get somebody for the job who does not know you carry enough stuff in your
pocket to blow yourself and everything within sixty yards of you to
pieces."

"I never affirmed I could not be eliminated," rejoined the other.  "But
that wouldn't be an arrest.  Moreover, it's not so easy as it looks."

"Bah!" Ossipon contradicted.  "Don't be too sure of that.  What's to
prevent half-a-dozen of them jumping upon you from behind in the street?
With your arms pinned to your sides you could do nothing--could you?"

"Yes; I could.  I am seldom out in the streets after dark," said the
little man impassively, "and never very late.  I walk always with my
right hand closed round the india-rubber ball which I have in my trouser
pocket.  The pressing of this ball actuates a detonator inside the flask
I carry in my pocket.  It's the principle of the pneumatic instantaneous
shutter for a camera lens.  The tube leads up--"

With a swift disclosing gesture he gave Ossipon a glimpse of an
india-rubber tube, resembling a slender brown worm, issuing from the
armhole of his waistcoat and plunging into the inner breast pocket of his
jacket.  His clothes, of a nondescript brown mixture, were threadbare and
marked with stains, dusty in the folds, with ragged button-holes.  "The
detonator is partly mechanical, partly chemical," he explained, with
casual condescension.

"It is instantaneous, of course?" murmured Ossipon, with a slight
shudder.

"Far from it," confessed the other, with a reluctance which seemed to
twist his mouth dolorously.  "A full twenty seconds must elapse from the
moment I press the ball till the explosion takes place."

"Phew!" whistled Ossipon, completely appalled.  "Twenty seconds!
Horrors!  You mean to say that you could face that?  I should go crazy--"

"Wouldn't matter if you did.  Of course, it's the weak point of this
special system, which is only for my own use.  The worst is that the
manner of exploding is always the weak point with us.  I am trying to
invent a detonator that would adjust itself to all conditions of action,
and even to unexpected changes of conditions.  A variable and yet
perfectly precise mechanism.  A really intelligent detonator."

"Twenty seconds," muttered Ossipon again.  "Ough!  And then--"

With a slight turn of the head the glitter of the spectacles seemed to
gauge the size of the beer saloon in the basement of the renowned Silenus
Restaurant.

"Nobody in this room could hope to escape," was the verdict of that
survey.  "Nor yet this couple going up the stairs now."

The piano at the foot of the staircase clanged through a mazurka with
brazen impetuosity, as though a vulgar and impudent ghost were showing
off.  The keys sank and rose mysteriously.  Then all became still.  For a
moment Ossipon imagined the overlighted place changed into a dreadful
black hole belching horrible fumes choked with ghastly rubbish of smashed
brickwork and mutilated corpses.  He had such a distinct perception of
ruin and death that he shuddered again.  The other observed, with an air
of calm sufficiency:

"In the last instance it is character alone that makes for one's safety.
There are very few people in the world whose character is as well
established as mine."

"I wonder how you managed it," growled Ossipon.

"Force of personality," said the other, without raising his voice; and
coming from the mouth of that obviously miserable organism the assertion
caused the robust Ossipon to bite his lower lip.  "Force of personality,"
he repeated, with ostentatious calm.  "I have the means to make myself
deadly, but that by itself, you understand, is absolutely nothing in the
way of protection.  What is effective is the belief those people have in
my will to use the means.  That's their impression.  It is absolute.
Therefore I am deadly."

"There are individuals of character amongst that lot too," muttered
Ossipon ominously.

"Possibly.  But it is a matter of degree obviously, since, for instance,
I am not impressed by them.  Therefore they are inferior.  They cannot be
otherwise.  Their character is built upon conventional morality.  It
leans on the social order.  Mine stands free from everything artificial.
They are bound in all sorts of conventions.  They depend on life, which,
in this connection, is a historical fact surrounded by all sorts of
restraints and considerations, a complex organised fact open to attack at
every point; whereas I depend on death, which knows no restraint and
cannot be attacked.  My superiority is evident."

"This is a transcendental way of putting it," said Ossipon, watching the
cold glitter of the round spectacles.  "I've heard Karl Yundt say much
the same thing not very long ago."

"Karl Yundt," mumbled the other contemptuously, "the delegate of the
International Red Committee, has been a posturing shadow all his life.
There are three of you delegates, aren't there?  I won't define the other
two, as you are one of them.  But what you say means nothing.  You are
the worthy delegates for revolutionary propaganda, but the trouble is not
only that you are as unable to think independently as any respectable
grocer or journalist of them all, but that you have no character
whatever."

Ossipon could not restrain a start of indignation.

"But what do you want from us?" he exclaimed in a deadened voice.  "What
is it you are after yourself?"

"A perfect detonator," was the peremptory answer.  "What are you making
that face for?  You see, you can't even bear the mention of something
conclusive."

"I am not making a face," growled the annoyed Ossipon bearishly.

"You revolutionists," the other continued, with leisurely
self-confidence, "are the slaves of the social convention, which is
afraid of you; slaves of it as much as the very police that stands up in
the defence of that convention.  Clearly you are, since you want to
revolutionise it.  It governs your thought, of course, and your action
too, and thus neither your thought nor your action can ever be
conclusive."  He paused, tranquil, with that air of close, endless
silence, then almost immediately went on.  "You are not a bit better than
the forces arrayed against you--than the police, for instance.  The other
day I came suddenly upon Chief Inspector Heat at the corner of Tottenham
Court Road.  He looked at me very steadily.  But I did not look at him.
Why should I give him more than a glance?  He was thinking of many
things--of his superiors, of his reputation, of the law courts, of his
salary, of newspapers--of a hundred things.  But I was thinking of my
perfect detonator only.  He meant nothing to me.  He was as insignificant
as--I can't call to mind anything insignificant enough to compare him
with--except Karl Yundt perhaps.  Like to like.  The terrorist and the
policeman both come from the same basket.  Revolution, legality--counter
moves in the same game; forms of idleness at bottom identical.  He plays
his little game--so do you propagandists.  But I don't play; I work
fourteen hours a day, and go hungry sometimes.  My experiments cost money
now and again, and then I must do without food for a day or two.  You're
looking at my beer.  Yes.  I have had two glasses already, and shall have
another presently.  This is a little holiday, and I celebrate it alone.
Why not?  I've the grit to work alone, quite alone, absolutely alone.
I've worked alone for years."

Ossipon's face had turned dusky red.

"At the perfect detonator--eh?" he sneered, very low.

"Yes," retorted the other.  "It is a good definition.  You couldn't find
anything half so precise to define the nature of your activity with all
your committees and delegations.  It is I who am the true propagandist."

"We won't discuss that point," said Ossipon, with an air of rising above
personal considerations.  "I am afraid I'll have to spoil your holiday
for you, though.  There's a man blown up in Greenwich Park this morning."

"How do you know?"

"They have been yelling the news in the streets since two o'clock.  I
bought the paper, and just ran in here.  Then I saw you sitting at this
table.  I've got it in my pocket now."

He pulled the newspaper out.  It was a good-sized rosy sheet, as if
flushed by the warmth of its own convictions, which were optimistic.  He
scanned the pages rapidly.

"Ah!  Here it is.  Bomb in Greenwich Park.  There isn't much so far.
Half-past eleven.  Foggy morning.  Effects of explosion felt as far as
Romney Road and Park Place.  Enormous hole in the ground under a tree
filled with smashed roots and broken branches.  All round fragments of a
man's body blown to pieces.  That's all.  The rest's mere newspaper gup.
No doubt a wicked attempt to blow up the Observatory, they say.  H'm.
That's hardly credible."

He looked at the paper for a while longer in silence, then passed it to
the other, who after gazing abstractedly at the print laid it down
without comment.

It was Ossipon who spoke first--still resentful.

"The fragments of only _one_ man, you note.  Ergo: blew _himself_ up.
That spoils your day off for you--don't it?  Were you expecting that sort
of move?  I hadn't the slightest idea--not the ghost of a notion of
anything of the sort being planned to come off here--in this country.
Under the present circumstances it's nothing short of criminal."

The little man lifted his thin black eyebrows with dispassionate scorn.

"Criminal!  What is that?  What _is_ crime?  What can be the meaning of
such an assertion?"

"How am I to express myself?  One must use the current words," said
Ossipon impatiently.  "The meaning of this assertion is that this
business may affect our position very adversely in this country.  Isn't
that crime enough for you?  I am convinced you have been giving away some
of your stuff lately."

Ossipon stared hard.  The other, without flinching, lowered and raised
his head slowly.

"You have!" burst out the editor of the F. P. leaflets in an intense
whisper.  "No!  And are you really handing it over at large like this,
for the asking, to the first fool that comes along?"

"Just so!  The condemned social order has not been built up on paper and
ink, and I don't fancy that a combination of paper and ink will ever put
an end to it, whatever you may think.  Yes, I would give the stuff with
both hands to every man, woman, or fool that likes to come along.  I know
what you are thinking about.  But I am not taking my cue from the Red
Committee.  I would see you all hounded out of here, or arrested--or
beheaded for that matter--without turning a hair.  What happens to us as
individuals is not of the least consequence."

He spoke carelessly, without heat, almost without feeling, and Ossipon,
secretly much affected, tried to copy this detachment.

"If the police here knew their business they would shoot you full of
holes with revolvers, or else try to sand-bag you from behind in broad
daylight."

The little man seemed already to have considered that point of view in
his dispassionate self-confident manner.

"Yes," he assented with the utmost readiness.  "But for that they would
have to face their own institutions.  Do you see?  That requires uncommon
grit.  Grit of a special kind."

Ossipon blinked.

"I fancy that's exactly what would happen to you if you were to set up
your laboratory in the States.  They don't stand on ceremony with their
institutions there."

"I am not likely to go and see.  Otherwise your remark is just," admitted
the other.  "They have more character over there, and their character is
essentially anarchistic.  Fertile ground for us, the States--very good
ground.  The great Republic has the root of the destructive matter in
her.  The collective temperament is lawless.  Excellent.  They may shoot
us down, but--"

"You are too transcendental for me," growled Ossipon, with moody concern.

"Logical," protested the other.  "There are several kinds of logic.  This
is the enlightened kind.  America is all right.  It is this country that
is dangerous, with her idealistic conception of legality.  The social
spirit of this people is wrapped up in scrupulous prejudices, and that is
fatal to our work.  You talk of England being our only refuge!  So much
the worse.  Capua!  What do we want with refuges?  Here you talk, print,
plot, and do nothing.  I daresay it's very convenient for such Karl
Yundts."

He shrugged his shoulders slightly, then added with the same leisurely
assurance: "To break up the superstition and worship of legality should
be our aim.  Nothing would please me more than to see Inspector Heat and
his likes take to shooting us down in broad daylight with the approval of
the public.  Half our battle would be won then; the disintegration of the
old morality would have set in in its very temple.  That is what you
ought to aim at.  But you revolutionists will never understand that.  You
plan the future, you lose yourselves in reveries of economical systems
derived from what is; whereas what's wanted is a clean sweep and a clear
start for a new conception of life.  That sort of future will take care
of itself if you will only make room for it.  Therefore I would shovel my
stuff in heaps at the corners of the streets if I had enough for that;
and as I haven't, I do my best by perfecting a really dependable
detonator."

Ossipon, who had been mentally swimming in deep waters, seized upon the
last word as if it were a saving plank.

"Yes.  Your detonators.  I shouldn't wonder if it weren't one of your
detonators that made a clean sweep of the man in the park."

A shade of vexation darkened the determined sallow face confronting
Ossipon.

"My difficulty consists precisely in experimenting practically with the
various kinds.  They must be tried after all.  Besides--"

Ossipon interrupted.

"Who could that fellow be?  I assure you that we in London had no
knowledge--Couldn't you describe the person you gave the stuff to?"

The other turned his spectacles upon Ossipon like a pair of searchlights.

"Describe him," he repeated slowly.  "I don't think there can be the
slightest objection now.  I will describe him to you in one
word--Verloc."

Ossipon, whom curiosity had lifted a few inches off his seat, dropped
back, as if hit in the face.

"Verloc!  Impossible."

The self-possessed little man nodded slightly once.

"Yes.  He's the person.  You can't say that in this case I was giving my
stuff to the first fool that came along.  He was a prominent member of
the group as far as I understand."

"Yes," said Ossipon.  "Prominent.  No, not exactly.  He was the centre
for general intelligence, and usually received comrades coming over here.
More useful than important.  Man of no ideas.  Years ago he used to speak
at meetings--in France, I believe.  Not very well, though.  He was
trusted by such men as Latorre, Moser and all that old lot.  The only
talent he showed really was his ability to elude the attentions of the
police somehow.  Here, for instance, he did not seem to be looked after
very closely.  He was regularly married, you know.  I suppose it's with
her money that he started that shop.  Seemed to make it pay, too."

Ossipon paused abruptly, muttered to himself "I wonder what that woman
will do now?" and fell into thought.

The other waited with ostentatious indifference.  His parentage was
obscure, and he was generally known only by his nickname of Professor.
His title to that designation consisted in his having been once assistant
demonstrator in chemistry at some technical institute.  He quarrelled
with the authorities upon a question of unfair treatment.  Afterwards he
obtained a post in the laboratory of a manufactory of dyes.  There too he
had been treated with revolting injustice.  His struggles, his
privations, his hard work to raise himself in the social scale, had
filled him with such an exalted conviction of his merits that it was
extremely difficult for the world to treat him with justice--the standard
of that notion depending so much upon the patience of the individual.
The Professor had genius, but lacked the great social virtue of
resignation.

"Intellectually a nonentity," Ossipon pronounced aloud, abandoning
suddenly the inward contemplation of Mrs Verloc's bereaved person and
business.  "Quite an ordinary personality.  You are wrong in not keeping
more in touch with the comrades, Professor," he added in a reproving
tone.  "Did he say anything to you--give you some idea of his intentions?
I hadn't seen him for a month.  It seems impossible that he should be
gone."

"He told me it was going to be a demonstration against a building," said
the Professor.  "I had to know that much to prepare the missile.  I
pointed out to him that I had hardly a sufficient quantity for a
completely destructive result, but he pressed me very earnestly to do my
best.  As he wanted something that could be carried openly in the hand, I
proposed to make use of an old one-gallon copal varnish can I happened to
have by me.  He was pleased at the idea.  It gave me some trouble,
because I had to cut out the bottom first and solder it on again
afterwards.  When prepared for use, the can enclosed a wide-mouthed,
well-corked jar of thick glass packed around with some wet clay and
containing sixteen ounces of X2 green powder.  The detonator was
connected with the screw top of the can.  It was ingenious--a combination
of time and shock.  I explained the system to him.  It was a thin tube of
tin enclosing a--"

Ossipon's attention had wandered.

"What do you think has happened?" he interrupted.

"Can't tell.  Screwed the top on tight, which would make the connection,
and then forgot the time.  It was set for twenty minutes.  On the other
hand, the time contact being made, a sharp shock would bring about the
explosion at once.  He either ran the time too close, or simply let the
thing fall.  The contact was made all right--that's clear to me at any
rate.  The system's worked perfectly.  And yet you would think that a
common fool in a hurry would be much more likely to forget to make the
contact altogether.  I was worrying myself about that sort of failure
mostly.  But there are more kinds of fools than one can guard against.
You can't expect a detonator to be absolutely fool-proof."

He beckoned to a waiter.  Ossipon sat rigid, with the abstracted gaze of
mental travail.  After the man had gone away with the money he roused
himself, with an air of profound dissatisfaction.

"It's extremely unpleasant for me," he mused.  "Karl has been in bed with
bronchitis for a week.  There's an even chance that he will never get up
again.  Michaelis's luxuriating in the country somewhere.  A fashionable
publisher has offered him five hundred pounds for a book.  It will be a
ghastly failure.  He has lost the habit of consecutive thinking in
prison, you know."

The Professor on his feet, now buttoning his coat, looked about him with
perfect indifference.

"What are you going to do?" asked Ossipon wearily.  He dreaded the blame
of the Central Red Committee, a body which had no permanent place of
abode, and of whose membership he was not exactly informed.  If this
affair eventuated in the stoppage of the modest subsidy allotted to the
publication of the F. P. pamphlets, then indeed he would have to regret
Verloc's inexplicable folly.

"Solidarity with the extremest form of action is one thing, and silly
recklessness is another," he said, with a sort of moody brutality.  "I
don't know what came to Verloc.  There's some mystery there.  However,
he's gone.  You may take it as you like, but under the circumstances the
only policy for the militant revolutionary group is to disclaim all
connection with this damned freak of yours.  How to make the disclaimer
convincing enough is what bothers me."

The little man on his feet, buttoned up and ready to go, was no taller
than the seated Ossipon.  He levelled his spectacles at the latter's face
point-blank.

"You might ask the police for a testimonial of good conduct.  They know
where every one of you slept last night.  Perhaps if you asked them they
would consent to publish some sort of official statement."

"No doubt they are aware well enough that we had nothing to do with
this," mumbled Ossipon bitterly.  "What they will say is another thing."
He remained thoughtful, disregarding the short, owlish, shabby figure
standing by his side.  "I must lay hands on Michaelis at once, and get
him to speak from his heart at one of our gatherings.  The public has a
sort of sentimental regard for that fellow.  His name is known.  And I am
in touch with a few reporters on the big dailies.  What he would say
would be utter bosh, but he has a turn of talk that makes it go down all
the same."

"Like treacle," interjected the Professor, rather low, keeping an
impassive expression.

The perplexed Ossipon went on communing with himself half audibly, after
the manner of a man reflecting in perfect solitude.

"Confounded ass!  To leave such an imbecile business on my hands.  And I
don't even know if--"

He sat with compressed lips.  The idea of going for news straight to the
shop lacked charm.  His notion was that Verloc's shop might have been
turned already into a police trap.  They will be bound to make some
arrests, he thought, with something resembling virtuous indignation, for
the even tenor of his revolutionary life was menaced by no fault of his.
And yet unless he went there he ran the risk of remaining in ignorance of
what perhaps it would be very material for him to know.  Then he
reflected that, if the man in the park had been so very much blown to
pieces as the evening papers said, he could not have been identified.
And if so, the police could have no special reason for watching Verloc's
shop more closely than any other place known to be frequented by marked
anarchists--no more reason, in fact, than for watching the doors of the
Silenus.  There would be a lot of watching all round, no matter where he
went.  Still--

"I wonder what I had better do now?" he muttered, taking counsel with
himself.

A rasping voice at his elbow said, with sedate scorn:

"Fasten yourself upon the woman for all she's worth."

After uttering these words the Professor walked away from the table.
Ossipon, whom that piece of insight had taken unawares, gave one
ineffectual start, and remained still, with a helpless gaze, as though
nailed fast to the seat of his chair.  The lonely piano, without as much
as a music stool to help it, struck a few chords courageously, and
beginning a selection of national airs, played him out at last to the
tune of "Blue Bells of Scotland."  The painfully detached notes grew
faint behind his back while he went slowly upstairs, across the hall, and
into the street.

In front of the great doorway a dismal row of newspaper sellers standing
clear of the pavement dealt out their wares from the gutter.  It was a
raw, gloomy day of the early spring; and the grimy sky, the mud of the
streets, the rags of the dirty men, harmonised excellently with the
eruption of the damp, rubbishy sheets of paper soiled with printers' ink.
The posters, maculated with filth, garnished like tapestry the sweep of
the curbstone.  The trade in afternoon papers was brisk, yet, in
comparison with the swift, constant march of foot traffic, the effect was
of indifference, of a disregarded distribution.  Ossipon looked hurriedly
both ways before stepping out into the cross-currents, but the Professor
was already out of sight.

 The narrator describes a nicely decorated downstairs lounge called the Silenus Restaurant. Comrade Ossipon sits at a table and starts talking about a "confounded affair" to another person. The big, muscular Ossipon seems to be nervous around this other guy, even though the narrator describes the guy as "frail enough for Ossipon to crush between his thumb and forefinger" . Ossipon asks a couple questions about whether the other guys have been out that day. Then he has a vision of the other man walking down the street, scaring everyone away with the sight of his black-rimmed glasses. You still don't know why this little twerp is so intimidating to Ossipon. It turns out that Ossipon's been asking these questions because he wants to know if this other man has heard the news that's been going around London. When he realizes that the other guy doesn't know what he's talking about, Ossipon leans over the table and asks the other guy, "Do you give your stuff to anybody who's up to asking for it?" . The other man says that his rule is never to refuse anyone who asks for some of his mysterious "wares." Ossipon isn't happy about this, but the other guy isn't all that concerned. He knows that the cops won't come anywhere near him because "they know very well that take care never to part with the last of wares" . So from this, we can figure out that this little dude keeps something on him " a thick glass flask" that keeps the cops from coming after him. When pressed, this guy explains to Ossipon that if anyone tried to lay a hand on him, he'd blow himself up and take out everything within sixty yards of him. So basically, this guy lives with a bomb on him at all times. Not a strategy for the faint-hearted. To avoid getting taken by surprise, the man has rigged his bomb to a little rubber ball he carries in his pocket. One squeeze of this detonator will blow up his bomb. He shows Ossipon the tube running from his pants pocket to the breast pocket of his jacket. Ossipon asks if the detonation is instant, but the bomb guy says that it actually takes twenty seconds for detonation. The bomb guy admits that this is a design issue with his detonator, and adds that his great dream is to create a perfect detonator: one that could adjust to any situation and always work perfectly. While this exchange takes place, a player piano near the doorway starts up by itself and plays songs seemingly at random, contributing to the notion of a random universe that Conrad develops throughout this novel. The bomb guy goes on to say that at the end of the day, it's not just having a bomb, but having a strong character that makes a person safe. The guy refers to this strength as "force of personality," explaining that its not his bomb that makes him deadly, but the fact that everyone knows he's willing to blow himself up . In his eyes, this is what makes him so much better than everyone else. At this point, you realize that the little bomb guy is basically a total psychopath. He's completely convinced that he's superior to everyone around him, and is willing to die to prove it. For example, when Ossipon says that other people might also have force of character, the bomb-guy says that he is "not impressed by them. Therefore they are inferior" . For the bomb guy, the sheer belief that he's better than people is enough to make it real. The bomb guy's reason for why he's so superior to others is, because unlike normal people, his awesomeness "depend on death, which knows no restraint and cannot be attacked" . If he's willing to die, then there's nothing that society can really threaten him with. In a sense, he's got the Braveheart logic down pat: "They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!" Ossipon doesn't know how to deal with this guy, so he asks him what he wants out of life. The bomb guy just says that he wants a "perfect detonator" and nothing else. Then he talks some serious smack about Ossipon for being a typical radical who just sits around whining about society and never doing anything about it. By this point, Ossipon is getting pretty flustered. But the guy's got an ace up his sleeve. He springs the news that he's been tiptoeing around since entering the lounge. Word on the street is that "There's a man blown up in Greenwich Park" , and the papers are saying it was part of an attempt to blow up the Greenwich observatory. Ossipon gloats that this must spoil the bomb dude's day, since a man has just gone and randomly done the very thing that's supposed to make the bomb dude so special. Ossipon goes on to say that he had no clue that any such attack was being planned by the anarchists, and is really worried that this little stunt will bring hellfire down on the anarchists and left-wing radicals in England. Also, he's pretty miffed at the bomb dude for just giving his explosives away to whoever asks for them. The bomb guy replies that the world doesn't get changed with pen and ink, but with bombs, and that he couldn't care less if Ossipon and all his buddies were rounded up and killed. Ossipon goes on to tell the bomb guy that the police should just shoot him dead in the street, which would definitely happen if the bomb guy lived in the United States instead of England. According to Ossipon, Americans are more willing to ignore the law if it means getting a job done. The bomb guy insists that what anarchists want is for cops to just start shooting people in broad daylight, because this would bring about the total collapse of the law, which is supposed to be the goal of anarchism. But Ossipon and his kind will never understand this. Ossipon changes the subject, and straight up asks who it was that blew himself up in Greenwich. The bomb-guy only needs to say one word: "Verloc" . Ossipon is floored, but the first thing he wonders about is what Verloc's wife Winnie will do now that Verloc's dead. Meanwhile, the bomb guy just sits there without much interest. You find out at this point that he tends to go by the nickname of "The Professor" . In the past, The Professor held a few jobs as a chemist . But he always thought he was being treated unfairly. "His struggles, his privations, his hard work to raise himself in the social scale, had filled him with such an exalted conviction of his merits that it was extremely difficult for the world to treat him with justice" . Basically, the guy is convinced of his greatness, and sees it as a horrible injustice when people don't bow down to him. He either plays by his own rules, or blows up himself and everyone around him. It's tough to negotiate with a guy like that. Ossipon can't believe what he's heard. He doesn't seem to respect Verloc intellectually, and wonders how the man could have found the courage to get himself blown up. The Professor basically says that Verloc either must have misjudged the bomb's timer or simply dropped the thing by accident. The Professor gets up to leave. Ossipon thinks of going to Verloc's shop to see Winnie, but is worried that police might be waiting there. He wonders out loud about what he should do. The Professor leans into his ear and says, "Fasten yourself upon the woman for all she's worth" . Ossipon leaves the lounge after the Professor, but can't see the little dude once he's in the street. There are posters spread all over the ground and covered in filth. Ossipon looks among the crowds of people surging through the street, and realizes that "The trade in afternoon papers was brisk, yet, in comparison with the swift, constant march of foot traffic, the effect was of indifference, of a disregarded distribution" . Theme alert! This observation touches on the themes of randomness and indifference that Conrad explores throughout this book.

