“No danger? But they are murderers?”
“There are plenty of murderers in the world, and they aren’t all Sinn Feiners.”
“But they murdered women. Look at the women they shot, and by order, too. More than one woman. We shot no women. And look at their terrible Sinn Fein regiment, the Black-and-Tans.”
“But, my dear, the Black-and-Tans were British Government police,” I gasped.
It was no use. She smiled in a superior manner.
“You think I don’t know,” she said, “but I’ve followed every line in the papers about the Irish question ever since you were over there. I was always so afraid you might have been shot in an ambush, and I should so hate not seeing it. I remember seeing in the paper—I cut out the paragraph to show you, but I lost it—that the majority of the Black-and-Tans were Irishmen.”
“But a Government force.”
“Nonsense. I’m sure you’re mistaken. I must look for the paragraph. More tea?”
Years of Sinn Fein propaganda had accomplished no more than that.