Next Myers I noticed Dr. Armitage, who stood out in striking contrast
from the rest of his companions. The smile with which he welcomed me was
eloquent of the satisfaction with which he noted this my first entrance
into an Anarchist circle.

The short bench on which he sat was shared by a man in corduroys of the
navvy type, a large honest-looking fellow whose views of the Social
question appeared to be limited to a not very definite idea of the
injustice of third-class railway travelling and the payment of rent, and
he expressed his opinions on these knotty problems with more freedom and
warmth of language than was perhaps altogether warranted by the occasion.

Gracefully poised on one leg against an adjoining type-rack leaned a tall
youth with fair curling hair, a weak tremulous mouth, and an almost
girlish physiognomy. This youth had been drummed out of the army, the
discipline of which he had found too severe, for feigning illness, since
when he had passed his time between the bosom of his family, the
workhouse, and the Anarchist party. He paid very little attention to the
proceedings of the meeting, but discoursed eloquently, in a low voice, of
the brutality of his parents who refused to keep him any longer unless he
made some attempt to find employment. I remember wondering, _en
passant_, why this fair-haired, weak-kneed youth had ever entered the
Anarchist party; but the explanation, had I but known, was close at hand.

This explanation was a square-built, sturdy-looking man of some forty
years. His appearance was the reverse of engaging, but by no means lacking
in intelligence. He was ill-satisfied and annoyed with the universe, and
habitually defied it from the stronghold of a double bed. Thither he had
retired after the death of his father, an old market-porter, who had been