“What do you want here?” asked one of the young men, aggressively. “If you’re police narks, we’ll turn you out!”
“Yes, or do you in!” said another.
“We don’t want any bleeding spies here,” said a woman.
Other expressions of hostility were uttered, and there was an ugly look on the faces of these foreign youths.
I thought it best to tell them frankly that I was merely a newspaper reporter on The Daily Chronicle, finding a little descriptive material. I should be interested to hear the speech upstairs, if they had no objection.
This candor disarmed them, or most of them, though a few raised the cry of “Turn them out!”
But an elderly man who seemed to have some authority raised his hand, and took me under his protection.
“That’s all right. We’ve nothing to hide. If The Daily Chronicle wants our views, it can have them. Better come and see Mrs. Rocca.”
The crowd made way for us on the stairs and my companion and I were led to a narrow landing outside the room, where the orator still bellowed in German to a packed audience, and then into a little slip of a room which I found to be an ordinary bathroom.
On the edge of the bath sat a well-dressed, rather good-looking and pleasant-eyed lady, to whom I was introduced, and who was introduced to me as Mrs. Rocca. She was the wife of the orator in the next room, and, like himself, German.