Ranged around the walls is an army of the dispossessed. They are there as his accusers; judge, jury, and council for the persecution all rolled into one. Here are the pimps and the hustlers, hard men, soft men, dodgy landlords, dealers, squealers, barmen, and getaway drivers. Knife men, cosh men and pistol whippers, bone breakers, procurers and disposers. Frighteners, big fat bully boys, wizened little jewellers, weasels, rats and blackmailers, yes men, no men, maybe men, bogey men, no hopers, interlopers, crooked cops and copped crooks, turf barons, runners, floaters and gift of the gabbers, bouncers, infiltrators, makers and breakers, abductors, liars, cheats, thieves and bruisers to a man. Sharp guys and blunt guys, tricksters, pricksters and pranksters, safe breakers, hitmen, jailbreakers, fraudsters, mobsters, roadies and toadies, front men, con men, card sharps and lip readers, mechanics, racketeers, slave traders, trackers, evil bastards, drunks, punks and skunks the lot of them. Not to mention the drug runners, the face smashers, the place smashers, the bribers, gamblers, dope addicts and serial screw up merchants, ball busters, stranglers and assorted schmucks – the whole underworld was in that god forsaken basement, and boy were they angry, angry as all hell. Top dogs, underdogs, footsoldiers, big time, small time, and medium time jailbirds, tight-lipped, cold-eyed, sad-eyed arse lickers, hitmen, tarts, pushers, two timing schmendriks, piss artists, cat burglars, kidnappers, jailbreakers, traitors, turncoats, shoplifters, freeloaders, poisoners, fences, spivs, old-fashioned villains, smash and grab men, arsonists, sadists, masochists, forgers, fixers, fiddlers and diddlers, double crossers, cheats, masters of surprise and disguise, scammers, hackers, wankers, wife beaters, arms dealers, grassers, suppliers, demanders, money launderers, the fallen from grace and the plain idle. In short the whole circus of crime – pain, pleasure and gain - with its gamblers and fixers, extortionists, hicks, hacks, torturers and hatchet men, borderliners, psychopaths, bullshitters, lock pickers, fast talkers, flatterers, batterers, muggers, assassins and assorted nutters, manipulators, wastrels, pornographers and fraudsters, all were life and death members of that secretive, proud, dishonourable brotherhood called the underworld.