Syme was shabby in those days. He wore an old-fashioned black
chimney-pot hat; he was wrapped in a yet more old-fashioned cloak,
black and ragged; and the combination gave him the look of the
early villains in Dickens and Bulwer Lytton. Also his yellow beard
and hair were more unkempt and leonine than when they appeared long
afterwards, cut and pointed, on the lawns of Saffron Park. A long,
lean, black cigar, bought in Soho for twopence, stood out from
between his tightened teeth, and altogether he looked a very
satisfactory specimen of the anarchists upon whom he had vowed a
holy war. Perhaps this was why a policeman on the Embankment spoke
to him, and said "Good evening."

Syme, at a crisis of his morbid fears for humanity, seemed stung by
the mere stolidity of the automatic official, a mere bulk of blue
in the twilight.

"A good evening is it?" he said sharply. "You fellows would call
the end of the world a good evening. Look at that bloody red sun
and that bloody river! I tell you that if that were literally human
blood, spilt and shining, you would still be standing here as solid
as ever, looking out for some poor harmless tramp whom you could
move on. You policemen are cruel to the poor, but I could forgive
you even your cruelty if it were not for your calm."

"If we are calm," replied the policeman, "it is the calm of
organised resistance."

"Eh?" said Syme, staring.