crushed by the fall of a basket of potatoes. The son saw in this tragic
circumstance the outcome and the reward of labour, swore a solemn oath
never to do a stroke of work again, threw up his job, and from that day
became a confirmed loafer in the Anarchist party. Some months previously,
while propagandising in the workhouse, he found the youth there, and
learned from his own lips how, being disinclined to become a burden on his
poor old parents after his exit from the army, he had seen no other
alternative but to become a pauper, and make the best he could of the
opportunities afforded him by the poor-rates. From the workhouse he was
dragged triumphantly forth by his new friend, and became an easy convert
to anarchic and communistic principles.

The only feminine element in this assembly was a fair, earnest-looking
Russian girl, whose slight knowledge of English did not allow her to
follow the proceedings very accurately. She was an almost pathetic figure
in her naive enthusiasm, and evidently regarded her present companions as
seriously as those she had left behind her in Russia, and seemed to
imagine they played as dangerous a role, and ran the same risk as they did.

There were several others present among whom the loafer type was perhaps
in the ascendant. But there were also many of the more intelligent artisan
class, discontented with their lot; labourers and dockers who had tramped
up after a hard day's work, a young artist who looked rather of the Social
Democratic type, a cabman, a few stray gentlemen, a clever but never-sober
tanner, a labour agitator, a professional stump-orator, and one or two
fishy and nondescript characters of the Hebraic race. O'Flynn, the printer
of the _Bomb_, was a cantankerous Irishman with a taste for
discoursing on abstract questions, concerning which he grew frightfully
muddled and confused. He had a rather mad look in his eye and a
disputatious manner.