As Pendarvon opened the door, he turned to me.
"Gustave Rudini."
It was Rudini--an undersized, ill-dressed little fellow, more like a waiter out of work than anything else I know. Pendarvon had had some difficulty in completing the tail of his thirteen. He had insisted that there must be thirteen members. In order to make up the number he had had to bring in three fellows who, to say the least of it, were not in society. Of these three Rudini was one. According to Pendarvon, he was a Swiss anarchist. Since he killed on principle, he was not likely to hesitate to kill for fun. His was not a pleasant personality. He addressed every one as "Citizen "--as he did me now.
"Well, citizen, the good work begins." I asked him what he meant. "Have you not seen about the bombs at Saragosa--that is what I call good reading."
I shuddered. I felt more than half disposed to knock the creature down. Some demons had thrown bombs among a crowded audience at a theatre. No end of people had been killed and injured. The brute called the account of the affair good reading.
I suppose he read my feelings in my face. He stretched out his hands in front of him--with a snarl which was perhaps meant for a grin.
"Do you not agree with me, citizen, that it is good reading? If it comes to killing, why kill units instead of tens? It is only a little matter of arithmetical progression."
The next comer was a madman out and out. He was a religionist of a sect of which, I suspect, he was the first member and the last. He believed, it seemed, that death meant annihilation. Annihilation, to use a paradox, was all he lived for. But it had been revealed to him--I never heard by whom, or how--that he himself never could attain annihilation until he had killed some one, as it were, to clear the way. So he had joined the club, in order that his destiny might the sooner be fulfilled. His name was Shepherd--Henry Shepherd. He was a lanky, loosely-built man, with long iron grey hair, and sailors' eyes--eyes, that is, which were calm and deep. As he entered, he seated himself at table without uttering a word. He was the second of Pendarvon's gathered and garnered three.
The fellows now came hard upon each others' heels. Unless I was mistaken, they had for the most part, been quenching their thirst. Their eyes shone; their speech was inclined to be erratic; about some of them there was a joviality which they had found in their glasses. Teddy Hibbard, for one, was distinctly drunk. He came with Eugene Silvester, who was not much better. The pair staggered up to me.
Teddy tried to steady himself by a somewhat close attachment to Silvester's arm.