e," he added without
emphasis. "Society has given me plenty of time for meditation."

On the other side of the fireplace, in the horse-hair arm-chair where Mrs
Verloc's mother was generally privileged to sit, Karl Yundt giggled
grimly, with a faint black grimace of a toothless mouth. The terrorist,
as he called himself, was old and bald, with a narrow, snow-white wisp of
a goatee hanging limply from his chin. An extraordinary expression of
underhand malevolence survived in his extinguished eyes. When he rose
painfully the thrusting forward of a skinny groping hand deformed by
gouty swellings suggested the effort of a moribund murderer summoning all
his remaining strength for a last stab. He leaned on a thick stick,
which trembled under his other hand.

"I have always dreamed," he mouthed fiercely, "of a band of men absolute
in their resolve to discard all scruples in the choice of means, strong
enough to give themselves frankly the name of destroyers, and free from
the taint of that resigned pessimism which rots the world. No pity for
anything on earth, including themselves, and death enlisted for good and
all in the service of humanity--that's what I would have liked to see."

His little bald head quivered, imparting a comical vibration to the wisp
of white goatee. His enunciation would have been almost totally
unintelligible to a stranger. His worn-out passion, resembling in its
impotent fierceness the excitement of a senile sensualist, was badly
served by a dried throat and toothless gums which seemed to catch the tip
of his tongue. Mr Verloc, established in the corner of the sofa at the
other end of the room, emitted two hearty grunts of assent.

The old terrorist turned slowly his head on his skinny neck from side to
side.

"And I could never get as many as three such men together. So much for
your rotten pessimism," he snarled at Michaelis, who uncrossed his thick
legs, similar to bolsters, and slid his feet abruptly under his chair in
sign of exasperation.

He a pessimist! Preposterous! He cried out that the charge was
outrageous. He was so far from pessimism that he saw already the end of
all private property coming along logically, unavoidably, by the mere
development of its inherent viciousness. The possessors of property had
not only to face the awakened proletariat, but they had also to fight
amongst themselves. Yes. Struggle, warfare, was the condition of
private ownership. It was fat