Armitage and Kosinski at such times would be busy folding the papers, both absorbed in their work, happy to think that they were thus advancing the great Cause. And Short, shivering discontentedly at the cold, or swearing amid much perspiration at the heat, would smoke his pipe and eat his unattractive pastry, whilst crawling into his rugs and banners, until Beppe, in an outburst of indignation, drags him out by the scruff of the neck and compels him to lock up the forms.
One night there was a grand banquet, for Beppe had turned in, bearing under his long cloak a prime conditioned tom-cat, whose disconcerted mews were rapidly ended by a dexterous twist of the neck, and whose plump person was before long stewing in wine and vinegar in the Tocsin stockpot, after his liver had been previously fried for the private consumption of the ever-hungry Beppe.
When this succulent repast had been disposed of towards 3 A.M. (all the Tocsin workers had admirable digestions) a brief respite from work ensued, during which Beppe sang pieces of Italian opera, accompanied by Gnecco on his mandolin, and M'Dermott treated us to brief recitations from Shakespeare. Much stamping and gesticulation accompanied, I remember, the soliloquy of Hamlet, and our flesh crept at the witches' incantations from "Macbeth." The old cobbler delighted in Shakespeare and dictionaries, between the perusal of which he spent most of his time. "Like Autolycus in the 'Winter's Tale,'" he said to me one day, "I am a 'snapper-up of unconsidered trifles,' and during the riots of 18—I snapped up a sufficient number of these to enable me to set myself up with a small library, and I did no work during eighteen months, devoting my entire time to Shakespeare and Johnson's Dictionary."
Sometimes a phrenologist who had strayed into our midst would follow on with a brief phrenological séance, and nothing afforded the comrades more satisfaction than to be informed that their bumps showed undoubted criminal propensities.
Then again the heavy roll of the machine would drown all lesser noises with its monotonous grinding, as the most resolute and earnest among us returned undaunted to the fray, whilst others, less energetic, curled up on the floor in varying uncomfortable attitudes about the office—inside the dormitory shed and out, propped against posts and type-racks, or stretched on stacks of paper—and slumbered in blissful ignorance of the future fortunes of the Tocsin.
CHAPTER VIII. — THE DYNAMITARD'S ESCAPE
May-Day was at hand, and we had been working all night at the office of the Tocsin in order to have the paper ready in time to distribute to the provincial groups. Since Friday morning I had hardly left the office at all—merely going home for dinner and returning at once to the fray—and by four o'clock Sunday morning we had rolled off the last of the five thousand copies of the Tocsin, which, along with two thousand leaflets drawn up by myself and Armitage, were ready for distribution. The 1st of May fell on the following Wednesday, and we had for once the satisfaction of knowing that we had taken Time by the forelock.
Short had retired to his shake-down in the dormitory about midnight, and the loud creaking of his boots against the boards was the only sign he gave of life. Kosinski, Armitage, and Giannoli, after making up and addressing the last parcel, had left for their respective abodes; Beppe and Meneghino, having turned the wheel the whole evening, had fallen to sleep exhausted, stretched on a bench in the machine-room; and I, after having partaken of a cup of tea and some hot buttered toast which old M'Dermott had provided for me, sat nodding and dozing on one side of the fire. The old cobbler had fallen fast asleep on the other side while poring over a dictionary, noting down sonorous and impressive-sounding words with which to embellish the oration he intended to deliver on May-day in Hyde Park.