condensed-milk can, among other relics. The floor, from one extremity to
the other of the "office," was littered with heaps of unsold revolutionary
literature, the approximate date of which could be gauged by the thickness
of dust in which it was smothered. On the walls and from beams and rafters
hung foils and boxing-gloves; artistic posters and cartoons, the relics of
a great artist who had founded the _Bomb_, and the effigies of divers
comrades to whom a pathway to a better world had been opened through the
hangman's drop. But what most riveted my attention was an indistinct
animate _something_ enveloped in a red flag, rolled up in a heap on
the frouziest and most forbidding old sofa it had ever been my lot to
behold. That this _something_ was animate could be gathered from the
occasional twitchings of the red bundle, and from the dark mop of black
greasy hair which emerged from one end. But to what section of the animal
kingdom _it_ belonged I was quite at a loss to decide. Other stray
objects which I noted about this apartment were an ostentatious-looking
old revolver of obsolete make, and some chemical bottles, which, however,
contained no substance more dangerous than Epsom salts.

The human occupants were not less noticeable than the inanimate, and some
of them are deserving of our attention.

The man Myers, round whom the interest of the meeting was principally
centred this evening, was to all appearances a mean enough type of the
East End sartorial Jew. His physiognomy was not that of a fool, but
indicated rather that low order of intelligence, cunning and intriguing,
which goes to make a good swindler. The low forehead, wide awake, shifty
little eyes, the nose of his forefathers, and insolent lock of black hair
plastered low on his brow--all these characteristics may frequently be met
with in the dock of the "Old Bailey" when some case of petty swindling is
being tried.