The truth was, I think, that the affair in Sidney Street had thoroughly scared the foreign element in the East End, and these people to whom we applied for rooms were on their guard at once against two strangers who might be police spies or criminals in search of a hiding place. They were not accepting trouble either way.
It was late at night when at last we persuaded an Israelite, and master tailor, to rent us a room in Sidney Street, next door to the house in which Peter the Painter and his friends had defied the armed police of London, and escaped capture by dying in the flames.
From that address Eddy and I wrote a series of articles describing our experiences in the East End, among anarchists, criminals, and costers. The anarchists were the most interesting, and we visited them in their night clubs.
We went, I remember, to a Russian hotel in Whitechapel, where the chief anarchist club in London had established its headquarters through fear of a police raid at its old address. Certainly they took no precautions to ensure secrecy, for even outside the hotel, down a side street, Eddy and I could hear the stentorian voice of one of their orators, and see the shadows of his audience on the window blinds. We went into the hotel and found the stairs leading to the club room densely packed by young men and women, for the most part respectably, and even smartly, dressed, of obviously foreign race—Russian, German, and Jewish.
Eddy and I wormed our way upstairs by slow degrees, sufficiently close to hear the long, excited speech that was being made in German. Here and there at least I heard snatches of it, and such phrases as “the tyranny of the police,” “the fear of the bourgeoisie,” “the dictatorship of the people,” “the liberty of speech,” and “the rights of labor to absolute self-government.” Such phrases as these were loudly applauded whenever the speaker paused.
“Who is speaking?” I asked of a good-looking young fellow sitting on the stairs.
He answered sullenly:
“Rocca. What’s that to you?”
Presently there was a whispering about us. Sullen faces under bowler hats held close consultation. Then there was a movement on the stairs, jamming Eddy and myself against the banisters.