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.