MITCHENER (amazed). Old Red resigned!
BALSQUITH. Resigned.
MITCHENER. But how? Why? Oh, impossible! the proclamation of martial law last Tuesday made Sandstone virtually Dictator in the metropolis, and to resign now is flat desertion.
BALSQUITH. Yes, yes, my dear Mitchener; I know all that as well as you do: I argued with him until I was black in the face and he so red about the neck that if I had gone on he would have burst. He is furious because we have abandoned his plan.
MITCHENER. But you accepted it unconditionally.
BALSQUITH. Yes, before we knew what it was. It was unworkable, you know.
MITCHENER. I dont know. Why is it unworkable?
BALSQUITH. I mean the part about drawing a cordon round Westminster at a distance of two miles; and turning all women out of it.
MITCHENER. A masterpiece of strategy. Let me explain. The Suffragets are a very small body; but they are numerous enough to be troublesome—even dangerous—when they are all concentrated in one place—say in Parliament Square. But by making a two-mile radius and pushing them beyond it, you scatter their attack over a circular line twelve miles long. A superb piece of tactics. Just what Wellington would have done.
BALSQUITH. But the women wont go.