“Extraordinary woman,” I said.
“Very, very. But don’t let’s talk about her. That was rather a good idea of yours. May be something in it.
“I didn’t know I had an idea,” I said. “Are you sure you’re not mixing me up with Mrs. Ascher? She has lots.”
“Not at all,” said Gorman. “It was you who suggested organising the National Volunteers.”
There was at that time in Ireland a small number of extreme patriots who rather admired Malcolmson because they thought he was going to fight against England, and despised Gorman because they knew he was not. These men had enrolled themselves in a semi-military organisation and called themselves the National Volunteers. Gorman and his friends did their best to suppress them and kept all mention of their existence out of the English papers as far as possible. It surprised me to hear him speak in a casual way of organising these declared enemies of his.
“You can’t do that,” I said. “Those fellows hate you like poison, worse than Malcolmson does. They’re—well, I should call them rebels. They certainly won’t do what you tell them.”
“Oh, yes, they will, if treated properly. My idea is to flood the organisation with reliable men, fellows we can trust. When we’ve got a majority of our own people enrolled we’ll tell them to elect their own leaders, democratic idea. Army choosing its own officers. Sure to catch on.”
“Sure to, and then?”
“Oh, then they’ll elect us. See? Every member of Parliament will be a colonel. We needn’t drill or anything; but there’s nothing to prevent our saying that we have 200,000 trained men. The Ulster fellows have gone no trumps on their 100,000——”
“I should be inclined to say gone No Home Rule.”