ded the underground
meeting of the anarchists, held within a quarter of a mile of the
Luxembourg. I was known to many there assembled, but my acquaintance
of course was not so large as with the London circle. They had half
expected me the night before, knowing that even going by the Hook of
Holland I might have reached Paris in time for the conclave. I was
introduced generally to the assemblage as the emissary from England,
who was to assist the bomb-throwing brother to escape either to that
country, or to such other point of safety as I might choose. No
questions were asked me regarding my doings of the day before, nor was
I required to divulge the plans for my fellow-member's escape. I was
responsible; that was enough. If I failed through no fault of my own,
it was but part of the ill-luck we were all prepared to face. If I
failed through treachery, then a dagger in the back at the earliest
possible moment. We all knew the conditions of our sinister contract,
and we all recognised that the least said the better.

The cellar was dimly lighted by one oil lamp depending from the
ceiling. From this hung a cord attached to an extinguisher, and one
jerk of the cord would put out the light. Then, while the main entry
doors were being battered down by police, the occupants of the room
escaped through one of three or four human rat-holes provided for that
purpose.

If any Parisian anarchist does me the honour to read these jottings, I
beg to inform him that while I remained in office under the Government
of France there was never a time when I did not know the exit of each
of these underground passages, and could during any night there was
conference have bagged the whole lot of those there assembled. It was
never my purpose, however, to shake the anarchists' confidence in
their system, for that merely meant the removal of the gathering to
another spot, thus giving us the additional trouble of mapping out
their new exits and entrances. When I did make a raid on anarchist
headquarters in Paris, it was always to secure some particular man. I
had my emissaries in plain clothes stationed at each exit. In any
case, the rats were allowed to escape unmolested, sneaking forth with
great caution into the night, but we always spotted the man we wanted,
and almost invariably arrested him elsewhere, having followed him from
his kennel. In each case my uniformed officers found a dark and empty
cellar, and retired apparently baffled. But