vault as if one of the guns had
gone off.

"Comrades!" he cried, in a voice that made every man jump out of his
boots, "have we come here for this? Do we live underground like rats in
order to listen to talk like this? This is talk we might listen to
while eating buns at a Sunday School treat. Do we line these walls with
weapons and bar that door with death lest anyone should come and hear
Comrade Gregory saying to us, 'Be good, and you will be happy,' 'Honesty
is the best policy,' and 'Virtue is its own reward'? There was not
a word in Comrade Gregory's address to which a curate could not have
listened with pleasure (hear, hear). But I am not a curate (loud
cheers), and I did not listen to it with pleasure (renewed cheers).
The man who is fitted to make a good curate is not fitted to make a
resolute, forcible, and efficient Thursday (hear, hear)."

"Comrade Gregory has told us, in only too apologetic a tone, that we
are not the enemies of society. But I say that we are the enemies
of society, and so much the worse for society. We are the enemies of
society, for society is the enemy of humanity, its oldest and its most
pitiless enemy (hear, hear). Comrade Gregory has told us (apologetically
again) that we are not murderers. There I agree. We are not murderers,
we are executioners (cheers)."

Ever since Syme had risen Gregory had sat staring at him, his face
idiotic with astonishment. Now in the pause his lips of clay parted, and
he said, with an automatic and lifeless distinctness--

"You damnable hypocrite!"

Syme looked straight into those frightful eyes with his own pale blue
ones, and said with dignity--

"Comrade Gregory accuses me of hypocrisy. He knows as well as I do that
I am keeping all my engagements and doing nothing but my duty. I do not
mince words. I do not pretend to. I say that Comrade Gregory is unfit
to be Thursday for all his amiable qualities. He is unfit to be Thursday
because of his amiable qualities. We do not want the Supreme Council of
Anarchy infected with a maudlin mercy (hear, hear). This is no time for
ceremonial politeness, neither is it a time for ceremonial modesty. I
set myself against Comrade Gregory as I would set myself against all the
Governments of Europe, because the anarchist who has given himself
to anarchy has forgotten modesty as much as he has forgotten pride
(cheers). I am not a man at all. I am a cause (renewed cheers). I set
myself against Comrade Gregory as impers