He waited outside the station for quite five minutes, tapping his stick impatiently the while. He was, by temperament, a very impatient and autocratic person, like most people who aspire to sovereign power. The burly and imposing figure of Lucue appeared through the gloom of the station. The two men shook hands. Contraras grumbled a little. "My friend, punctuality was never your very special virtue. You were to be at my house by a quarter-past six. It is now a quarter to seven, half an hour late, and I am meeting you at the station. It would take another five minutes to get to my house." "That would mean I should be quite thirty-five minutes late, eh?" queried Lucue in his usual easy, genial fashion. He had the greatest respect for the great leader, Ferdinand Contraras; he fully recognised his single-mindedness, his devotion to the cause. But he was also aware of his little weaknesses of temper, his proneness to take offence at trifles. "I am honestly very sorry I have kept you waiting, but it was impossible to get away before." Lucue surveyed the neighbourhood around him with some contempt, and added: "Besides, if you will live in an out-of-the-way spot like this, you can't blame your friends if they find it a bit difficult to get to you." Lucue himself lived in lodgings in a mean street in Soho. In spite of his reverence for his chief, he did not quite relish the fact that Contraras was living in a lordly pleasure house, that he fared every day on the daintiest food, and was very particular as to vintages. Contraras, in spite of his sacrifices to the great cause, was not exactly practising what he preached. Lucue himself was poor. Hence, perhaps, these profound meditations. It would not be going too far to say that Lucue was already anticipating the day when Contraras would be required, under the new dispensation, to hand over the remainder of his wealth for the common benefit. But things had not got so far as this at the moment. Law and order were still in the ascendant, and anarchy had not yet got its foot into the stirrup, much less was it mounted in the saddle. The two men walked up to the house in Fitzjohn's Avenue, where Contraras lived in some sort of state. A butler opened the door, a footman hovered in the background. There would be a dinner of many courses, there would be wines of the first quality. For the leader of the great anarchist movement did himself and his friends very well. Poor Contraras! He often failed to notice the envious eyes of his friends, the humble friends who left his hospitable house to return to their dingy lodgings in Soho, or the mean streets off Tottenham Court Road. He took Lucue into his private sitting-room. A decanter of whiskey, soda-water, and glasses were ready on the table, placed there by the thoughtful butler. In the best of all possible worlds there would be no butlers thought Lucue grimly, as he helped himself at his host's invitation.