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