However, the lion so seldom roars when it is expected to roar.  Instead of the extraordinary creature whom Lord Evelyn had been describing, Brand found merely an Irish newspaper-reporter, who was either tired, or indifferent, or sleepy.  They talked about some current topic of the hour for a few minutes; and then Mr. O’Halloran, with a yawn, rose and said he must go home for breakfast.

“Stay a bit, O’Halloran,” Lord Evelyn said, in despair; “I—­I wanted—­the fact is, Mr. Brand has been asking me about Ferdinand Lind—­”

“Oh,” said the bushy-headed man, with a quick glance of scrutiny at the tall Englishman.  “No, no,” he added, with a smile, addressing himself directly to Brand, “it is no use your touching anything of that kind.  You would want to know too much.  You would want to have the earth dug away from over the catacombs before you went below to follow a solitary guide with a bit of candle.  You could never be brought to understand that the cardinal principle of all secret societies has been that obedience is an end and aim in itself, and faith the chiefest of all the virtues.  You wouldn’t take anything on trust; you have the pure English temperament.”

Brand laughed, and said nothing.  But O’Halloran sat down again, and began to talk in an idle, hap-hazard sort of fashion of the various secret societies, religious, social, political that had become known to the world; and of their aims, and their working, and how they had so often fallen away into the mere preservation of mummeries, or declared themselves only by the commission of useless deeds of revenge.

“Ah,” said Brand, eagerly, “that is precisely what I have been urging on Lord Evelyn.  How can you know, in joining such an association, that you are not becoming the accomplices of men who are merely planning assassination?  And what good can come of that?  How are you likely to gain anything by the dagger?  The great social and political changes of the world come in tides; you can neither retard them nor help them by sticking pins in the sand.”

“I am not so sure,” said the other, doubtfully.  “A little wholesome terrorism has sometimes played its part.  The 1868 amnesty to the Poles in Siberia was not so long after—­not more than a year after, I think—­that little business of Berezowski.  Faith, what a chance that man had!”

“Who?”

“Berezowski,” said he, with an air of contemplation.  “The two biggest scoundrels in the world in one carriage; and he had two shots at them.  Well, well, Orsini succeeded better.”

“Succeeded?” said George Brand.  “Do you call that success?  He had the reward that he richly merited, at all events.”

“You do not think he was successful?” he said, calmly.  “Then you do not know how the kingdom of Italy came by its liberty.  Who do you think was the founder of that kingdom of Italy?—­which God preserve till it become something better than a kingdom!  Not Cavour, with all his wiliness; not your Galantuomo, the warrior who wrote up Aspromonte in the face of all the world as the synonyme for the gratitude of kings; not Garibaldi, who, in spite of Aspromonte, has become now merely the concierge to the House of Savoy.  The founder of the kingdom of Italy was Felix Orsini—­and whether heaven or hell contains him, I drink his health!”