e. There were no rifles or pistols in this
apartment, but round the walls of it were hung more dubious and dreadful
shapes, things that looked like the bulbs of iron plants, or the eggs
of iron birds. They were bombs, and the very room itself seemed like the
inside of a bomb. Syme knocked his cigar ash off against the wall, and
went in.

"And now, my dear Mr. Syme," said Gregory, throwing himself in an
expansive manner on the bench under the largest bomb, "now we are quite
cosy, so let us talk properly. Now no human words can give you any
notion of why I brought you here. It was one of those quite arbitrary
emotions, like jumping off a cliff or falling in love. Suffice it to
say that you were an inexpressibly irritating fellow, and, to do you
justice, you are still. I would break twenty oaths of secrecy for the
pleasure of taking you down a peg. That way you have of lighting a cigar
would make a priest break the seal of confession. Well, you said that
you were quite certain I was not a serious anarchist. Does this place
strike you as being serious?"

"It does seem to have a moral under all its gaiety," assented Syme; "but
may I ask you two questions? You need not fear to give me information,
because, as you remember, you very wisely extorted from me a promise not
to tell the police, a promise I shall certainly keep. So it is in mere
curiosity that I make my queries. First of all, what is it really all
about? What is it you object to? You want to abolish Government?"

"To abolish God!" said Gregory, opening the eyes of a fanatic. "We do
not only want to upset a few despotisms and police regulations;
that sort of anarchism does exist, but it is a mere branch of the
Nonconformists. We dig deeper and we blow you higher. We wish to
deny all those arbitrary distinctions of vice and virtue, honour
and treachery, upon which mere rebels base themselves. The silly
sentimentalists of the French Revolution talked of the Rights of Man! We
hate Rights as we hate Wrongs. We have abolished Right and Wrong."

"And Right and Left," said Syme with a simple eagerness, "I hope you
will abolish them too. They are much more troublesome to me."

"You spoke of a second question," snapped Gregory.

"With pleasure," resumed Syme. "In all your present acts and
surroundings there is a scientific attempt at secrecy. I have an aunt
who lived over a shop, but this is the first time I have found people
living from preference under a public-house.