“You Irish are all mad,” the German complained, sourly—“mad about laughing. Even me you will laugh at, while you trust your very life to me, while you trust to my genius to make Soviet England possible and Ireland free.”
“Faith! you’re away off there, me friend. If it was you and your genius I had to trust, it’s meself would turn violent reactionary and advise Ireland to be a good dog and come to England’s heel and lick England’s hand and live off England’s leavings. I’ll trust nobody in this black business but himself—Number One.”
“You have changed your tune since that night at the Red Moon,” Sturm reminded him, angrily.
“I had me lesson then and there,” Eleven agreed, cheerfully. “And I don’t mind telling you, the next time I’m taken with a fancy to call me soul me own, I’ll be after asking himself first for a license.”
Victor put a period to the passage with a dispassionate “By your leave, gentlemen—that will do.” To the Irishman he added: “You understand the danger, I believe, of remaining within the condemned area—that is to say, except in the open air?”
“Can’t say I do, altogether.”
“It is simple: no person in any house supplied by the mains of the Westminster gas works will be safe for hours after the formula of Thirteen has begun its work. My advice to you is to keep out of the district entirely.”
“Faith, and I’ll do that! But how about yourself in this house?”
“I shall spend the week-end outside of London,” Victor replied, “not too far away, of course, and”—the shadow of his satiric smile was briefly visible—“prepared at any moment to answer the call of my stricken country.... The few who remain here will be provided with the essentials for their protection. Furthermore, a general warning will be sent out to all who can be trusted.”
“And the others—?”