o 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 ta