He was
right in his surmise, only _this_ one, unlike the others who came from a
distance, was known to him personally. Still, he hoped to pass on with
a mere bow, but it was impossible to ignore the little thin hand with
hairy wrist and knuckles protruded in a friendly wave from under the
folds of the cloak, worn Spanish-wise, in disregard of a fairly warm
day, a corner flung over the shoulder.
"And how is Herr Razumov?" sounded the greeting in German, by that alone
made more odious to the object of the affable recognition. At closer
quarters the diminutive personage looked like a reduction of an
ordinary-sized man, with a lofty brow bared for a moment by the raising
of the hat, the great pepper-and salt full beard spread over the
proportionally broad chest. A fine bold nose jutted over a thin mouth
hidden in the mass of fine hair. All this, accented features, strong
limbs in their relative smallness, appeared delicate without the
slightest sign of debility. The eyes alone, almond-shaped and brown,
were too big, with the whites slightly bloodshot by much pen labour
under a lamp. The obscure celebrity of the tiny man was well known to
Razumov. Polyglot, of unknown parentage, of indefinite nationality,
anarchist, with a pedantic and ferocious temperament, and an amazingly
inflammatory capacity for invective, he was a power in the background,
this violent pamphleteer clamouring for revolutionary justice, this
Julius Laspara, editor of the _Living Word_, confidant of conspirators,
inditer of sanguinary menaces and manifestos, suspected of being in the
secret of every plot.
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