he premises of the Friends of Freedom Club, found to his
astonishment that Mr. Bim required very little inveigling. The truth
was, of course, that the gun-man had a supreme contempt for all
Russians, whom he had classified mistakenly as "Lithanians" and
"Pollaks." To the fervent promise made by Mr. Yakoff that no harm would
come to him, Cherry Bim had replied briefly but unprintably.

"Of course, there'll be no harm come to me," he said scornfully. "You
don't think I worry about what that bunch will do? No, sir! But I'm
powerfully disinclined to associate myself with people out of my class.
It doesn't do a man any good to be seen round with Pollaks and Letts."

Yakoff earnestly implored him to come and give the benefit of his
experience to the assembly, and had promised him substantial payment.
This latter argument was one which Cherry Bim could understand and
appreciate. He accepted on the spot, and came down to the stuffy little
underground room, expecting no more than to be asked to deliver a
lecture on the gentle art of assassination. Not that he knew very much
about it, because Cherry, with three or four men to his credit, had shot
them in fair fight; but a hundred pounds was a lot of money, and he
badly needed just enough to shake the mud of England from his shoes and
seek a land more prolific in possibilities.

The first thing he noticed on arrival was that Boolba, the man who had
interrogated him before, was not present. In his place sat a smaller
man, with a straggly black beard and a white face, who was addressed as
"Nicholas."

The second curious circumstance which struck him was that he was
received also in an ominous silence.

The black-bearded man, who spoke in perfect English, indicated a chair
to the left of him.

"Sit down, comrade," he said. "We have asked you to come because we
have another proposition to make to you."

"If it's a croaking proposition, you needn't go any farther," said
Cherry, "and I won't trouble you with my presence, gents, and----" he
looked in vain for the woman he had seen before, and added, that he
might round off his sentence gracefully--"fellow murderers."

"Mr. Bim," said Nicholas in his curious singsong tone, "does it not make
your blood boil to see tyranny in high places----"

"Now, can that stuff!" said Cherry Bim. "Nothing makes my blood boil, or
would make my blood boil, except sitting on a stove, I guess. Tyranny
don't mean any more in my young life than Henne