- The narrator describes a nicely decorated downstairs lounge called the Silenus Restaurant. Comrade Ossipon sits at a table and starts talking about a "confounded affair" (4.2) to another person. The big, muscular Ossipon seems to be nervous around this other guy, even though the narrator describes the guy as "frail enough for Ossipon to crush between his thumb and forefinger" (4.6).
- Ossipon asks a couple questions about whether the other guys have been out that day. Then he has a vision of the other man walking down the street, scaring everyone away with the sight of his black-rimmed glasses. You still don't know why this little twerp is so intimidating to Ossipon. It turns out that Ossipon's been asking these questions because he wants to know if this other man has heard the news that's been going around London.
- When he realizes that the other guy doesn't know what he's talking about, Ossipon leans over the table and asks the other guy, "Do you […] give your stuff to anybody who's up to asking for it?" (4.18). The other man says that his rule is never to refuse anyone who asks for some of his mysterious "wares."
- Ossipon isn't happy about this, but the other guy isn't all that concerned. He knows that the cops won't come anywhere near him because "they know very well that [he] take[s] care never to part with the last of [his] wares" (4.33).
- So from this, we can figure out that this little dude keeps something on him "[in] a thick glass flask" that keeps the cops from coming after him. When pressed, this guy explains to Ossipon that if anyone tried to lay a hand on him, he'd blow himself up and take out everything within sixty yards of him. So basically, this guy lives with a bomb on him at all times. Not a strategy for the faint-hearted.
- To avoid getting taken by surprise, the man has rigged his bomb to a little rubber ball he carries in his pocket. One squeeze of this detonator will blow up his bomb. He shows Ossipon the tube running from his pants pocket to the breast pocket of his jacket.
- Ossipon asks if the detonation is instant, but the bomb guy says that it actually takes twenty seconds for detonation. The bomb guy admits that this is a design issue with his detonator, and adds that his great dream is to create a perfect detonator: one that could adjust to any situation and always work perfectly.
- While this exchange takes place, a player piano near the doorway starts up by itself and plays songs seemingly at random, contributing to the notion of a random universe that Conrad develops throughout this novel.
- The bomb guy goes on to say that at the end of the day, it's not just having a bomb, but having a strong character that makes a person safe. The guy refers to this strength as "force of personality," explaining that its not his bomb that makes him deadly, but the fact that everyone knows he's willing to blow himself up (4.52). In his eyes, this is what makes him so much better than everyone else.
- At this point, you realize that the little bomb guy is basically a total psychopath. He's completely convinced that he's superior to everyone around him, and is willing to die to prove it. For example, when Ossipon says that other people might also have force of character, the bomb-guy says that he is "not impressed by them. Therefore they are inferior" (4.55). For the bomb guy, the sheer belief that he's better than people is enough to make it real.
- The bomb guy's reason for why he's so superior to others is, because unlike normal people, his awesomeness "depend[s] on death, which knows no restraint and cannot be attacked" (4.55). If he's willing to die, then there's nothing that society can really threaten him with. In a sense, he's got the Braveheart logic down pat: "They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!"
- Ossipon doesn't know how to deal with this guy, so he asks him what he wants out of life. The bomb guy just says that he wants a "perfect detonator" and nothing else. Then he talks some serious smack about Ossipon for being a typical radical who just sits around whining about society and never doing anything about it.
- By this point, Ossipon is getting pretty flustered. But the guy's got an ace up his sleeve. He springs the news that he's been tiptoeing around since entering the lounge. Word on the street is that "There's a man blown up in Greenwich Park" (4.66), and the papers are saying it was part of an attempt to blow up the Greenwich observatory.
- Ossipon gloats that this must spoil the bomb dude's day, since a man has just gone and randomly done the very thing that's supposed to make the bomb dude so special. Ossipon goes on to say that he had no clue that any such attack was being planned by the anarchists, and is really worried that this little stunt will bring hellfire down on the anarchists and left-wing radicals in England. Also, he's pretty miffed at the bomb dude for just giving his explosives away to whoever asks for them.
- The bomb guy replies that the world doesn't get changed with pen and ink, but with bombs, and that he couldn't care less if Ossipon and all his buddies were rounded up and killed.
- Ossipon goes on to tell the bomb guy that the police should just shoot him dead in the street, which would definitely happen if the bomb guy lived in the United States instead of England. According to Ossipon, Americans are more willing to ignore the law if it means getting a job done.
- The bomb guy insists that what anarchists want is for cops to just start shooting people in broad daylight, because this would bring about the total collapse of the law, which is supposed to be the goal of anarchism. But Ossipon and his kind will never understand this.
- Ossipon changes the subject, and straight up asks who it was that blew himself up in Greenwich.
- The bomb-guy only needs to say one word: "Verloc" (4.97).
- Ossipon is floored, but the first thing he wonders about is what Verloc's wife Winnie will do now that Verloc's dead. Meanwhile, the bomb guy just sits there without much interest. You find out at this point that he tends to go by the nickname of "The Professor" (4.104).
- In the past, The Professor held a few jobs as a chemist (which would explain his ability to make bombs). But he always thought he was being treated unfairly. "His struggles, his privations, his hard work to raise himself in the social scale, had filled him with such an exalted conviction of his merits that it was extremely difficult for the world to treat him with justice" (4.104). Basically, the guy is convinced of his greatness, and sees it as a horrible injustice when people don't bow down to him. He either plays by his own rules, or blows up himself and everyone around him. It's tough to negotiate with a guy like that.
- Ossipon can't believe what he's heard. He doesn't seem to respect Verloc intellectually, and wonders how the man could have found the courage to get himself blown up. The Professor basically says that Verloc either must have misjudged the bomb's timer or simply dropped the thing by accident.
- The Professor gets up to leave. Ossipon thinks of going to Verloc's shop to see Winnie, but is worried that police might be waiting there. He wonders out loud about what he should do. The Professor leans into his ear and says, "Fasten yourself upon the woman for all she's worth" (4.124).
- Ossipon leaves the lounge after the Professor, but can't see the little dude once he's in the street. There are posters spread all over the ground and covered in filth. Ossipon looks among the crowds of people surging through the street, and realizes that "The trade in afternoon papers was brisk, yet, in comparison with the swift, constant march of foot traffic, the effect was of indifference, of a disregarded distribution" (4.126). Theme alert! This observation touches on the themes of randomness and indifference that Conrad explores throughout this book.