In fact, it did contain a dining-table, or more strictly a breakfast-table; and round the breakfast-table, glowing in the sunlight and evident to the street, were a group of noisy and talkative men, all dressed in the insolence of fashion, with white waistcoats and expensive button-holes.

Some of their jokes could almost be heard across the square.

Then the grave Secretary gave his unnatural smile, and Syme knew that this boisterous breakfast party was the secret conclave of the European Dynamiters.
Then, as Syme continued to stare at them, he saw something that he had not seen before.

He had not seen it literally because it was too large to see.

At the nearest end of the balcony, blocking up a great part of the perspective, was the back of a great mountain of a man.