Gorman grinned.
“Gone no something,” he said, “and we double them. I expect that will set English opinion swinging round again.”
“It ought to,” I said, “but why bother about all these preliminaries? Why put everybody in Ireland to the trouble of enrolling themselves in a new organisation and electing officers and all that? It’s just as easy to say you have 200,000 trained men before being made a colonel as afterwards.”
“You don’t understand politics,” said Gorman. “In politics there must be a foundation of some sort for every fact. It needn’t be much of a foundation, but there must be some.”
“Hard on the Irish people,” I said, “being put to all that trouble and bother just to make a foundation.”
“Not at all,” said Gorman. “They’ll like it. But I hope to goodness that fanatic woman won’t insist on our buying guns. It would be the devil and all if the fellows I’m thinking about got guns in their hands. You simply couldn’t tell what they’d do. You’ll have to try and keep Mrs. Ascher quiet.”
“I’m going to ask her to dine with me and go to see your play,” I said. “That may distract her mind from guns for a while.”
“You use your influence with her,” said Gorman. “I’ve the greatest belief in influence.”
He has.