The Man from St. Petersburg by Ken Follett

already for stitching were piled on every available patch of floor space. Nobody looked up at Feliks: they were all working furiously fast.
    He spoke to the nearest person, a girl with a baby at her breast. She was hand-sewing buttons onto the sleeve of a jacket. “Is Nathan here?” he said.
    “Upstairs,” she said without pausing at her work.
    Feliks went out of the room and up the narrow staircase. Each of the two small bedrooms had four beds. Most of them were occupied, presumably by people who worked at night. He found Nathan in the back room, sitting on the edge of a bed, buttoning his shirt.
    Nathan saw him and said: “Feliks, wie gehts? ”
    “I need to talk to you,” Feliks said in Yiddish.
    “So talk.”
    “Come outside.”
    Nathan put on his coat and they went out into Sidney Street. They stood in the sunshine, close to the open window of the sweat-shop, their conversation masked by the noise from inside.
    “My father’s trade,” said Nathan. “He’ll pay a girl fivepence for machining a pair of trousers—an hour’s work for her. He’ll pay another threepence to the girls who cut, press and sew on buttons. Then he will take the trousers to a West End tailor and get paid ninepence. Profit, one penny—enough to buy one slice of bread. If he asks the West End tailor for tenpence he’ll be thrown out of the shop, and the work will be given to one of the dozens of Jewish tailors out in the street with their machines under their arms. I won’t live like that.”
    “Is this why you’re an anarchist?”
    “Those people make the most beautiful clothes in the world—but did you see how they are dressed?”
    “And how will things be changed—by violence?”
    “I think so.”
    “I was sure you would feel this way. Nathan, I need a gun.”
    Nathan laughed nervously. “What for?”
    “Why do anarchists usually want guns?”
    “You tell me, Feliks.”
    “To steal from thieves, to oppress tyrants and to kill murderers.”
    “Which are you going to do?”
    “I’ll tell you—if you really want to know …”
    Nathan thought for a moment, then said: “Go to the Frying Pan pub on the corner of Brick Lane and Thrawl Street. See Garfield the Dwarf.”
    “Thank you!” said Feliks, unable to keep the note of triumph out of his voice. “How much will I have to pay?”
    “Five shillings for a pinfire.”
    “I’d rather have something more reliable.”
    “Good guns are expensive.”
    “I’ll just have to haggle.” Feliks shook Nathan’s hand. “Thank you.”
    Nathan watched him climb on his bicycle. “Maybe you’ll tell me about it, afterward.”
    Feliks smiled. “You’ll read about it in the papers.” He waved a hand and rode off.
    He cycled along Whitechapel Road and Whitechapel High Street, then turned right into Osborn Street. Immediately, the character of the streets changed. This was the most run-down part of London he had yet seen. The streets were narrow and very dirty, the air smoky and noisome, the people mostly wretched. The gutters were choked with filth. But despite all that the place was as busy as a beehive. Men ran up and down with handcarts, crowds gathered around street stalls, prostitutes worked every corner and the workshops of carpenters and bootmakers spilled out onto the pavements.
    Feliks left his bicycle outside the door of the Frying Pan: if it was taken he would just have to steal another one. To enter the pub he had to step over what looked like a dead cat. Inside was a single room, low and bare, with a bar at the far end. Older men and women sat on benches around the walls, while younger people stood in the middle of the room. Feliks went to the bar and asked for a glass of ale and a cold sausage.
    He looked around and spotted Garfield the Dwarf. He had not seen him before because the man was standing on a chair. He was about four feet tall, with a large head and a middle-aged face. A very big black dog sat on the floor beside his chair. He was talking to two