oil. But
what's the use of printing things like that? We aren't German slaves
here, thank God. It's not our business--is it?"

Mr Verloc made no reply.

"I had to take the carving knife from the boy," Mrs Verloc continued, a
little sleepily now. "He was shouting and stamping and sobbing. He
can't stand the notion of any cruelty. He would have stuck that officer
like a pig if he had seen him then. It's true, too! Some people don't
deserve much mercy." Mrs Verloc's voice ceased, and the expression of
her motionless eyes became more and more contemplative and veiled during
the long pause. "Comfortable, dear?" she asked in a faint, far-away
voice. "Shall I put out the light now?"

The dreary conviction that there was no sleep for him held Mr Verloc mute
and hopelessly inert in his fear of darkness. He made a great effort.

"Yes. Put it out," he said at last in a hollow tone.

CHAPTER IV

Most of the thirty or so little tables covered by red cloths with a white
design stood ranged at right angles to the deep brown wainscoting of the
underground hall. Bronze chandeliers with many globes depended from the
low, slightly vaulted ceiling, and the fresco paintings ran flat and dull
all round the walls without windows, representing scenes of the chase and
of outdoor revelry in mediaeval costumes. Varlets in green jerkins
brandished hunting knives and raised on high tankards of foaming beer.

"Unless I am very much mistaken, you are the man who would know the
inside of this confounded affair," said the robust Ossipon, leaning over,
his elbows far out on the table and his feet tucked back completely under
his chair. His eyes stared with wild eagerness.

An upright semi-grand piano near the door, flanked by two palms in pots,
executed suddenly all by itself a valse tune with aggressive virtuosity.
The din it raised was deafening. When it ceased, as abruptly as it had
started, the be-spectacled, dingy little man who faced Ossipon behind a
heavy glass mug full of beer emitted calmly what had the sound of a
general proposition.

"In principle what one of us may or may not know as to any given fact
can't be a matter for inquiry to the others."

"Certainly not," Comrade Ossipon agreed in a quiet undertone. "In
principle."

With his big florid face held between his hands he continued to stare
hard, while the dingy little man in spectacles coolly took a drink of
beer and stood the glass mug back on the