"'This,' ses one of the English Lords—a felly be the name o' Derby—'this,' ses he, 'is tarrible. If the inimy hears o' this, all the Irish in the worrld and in Ameriky won't save us.'
"So he gets out a scheme—he's a tarrible ould schemer is that wan—whereby, ye see, ivery man in England was to inlist to sarve when he was called up, and they were to be made up intil groups, an' the married men was to be put intil the lasht group. The advantage o' that was that it intimidated th' inimy, bekase a man looks more whin he is called a group. Thin the ould schemer arranged that these groups should get armlets, somethin' like a sling, so, whin a man was called up in a group, he could show the sling he was wearin' and he'd be put intil a later group. Ah! 'twas a grand scheme! Ye see, the limit of militry age bees now forthy-wan, and supposing there was a million men in ivery group (and I was tould there was more) that was forthy-wan million!"
"Glory be to God, Mrs. Ryan, but that's a tarrible number!"
"Ye say right, Mrs. Flanagan. But look you here, ivery time a group was called up and the men was put back intil a later group, it made more men for the later groups, until, ye see, whin they called up the lasht group there 'd be forthy-wan times as many men at the ind as at the beginnin'. That was the scheme for puttin' the fear o' God intil thim Germins."
"Thin will ye tell me, Mrs. Ryan, why didn't they shtick till it?"
"'Tis harrd to explain, Mrs. Flanagan, and here we are at me door. I'll take the porther bottles, thank ye kindly, Ma'am. Well, this was the way av it. When they shtarted the recruitin' av the groups they found that 'twas too many officers they were afther gettin'. I heard there was half a million as had to be given their shtars! An' I needn't be afther tellin' ye, Mrs. Flanagan, that even with all the millions of Irish out there, there wouldn't be room for five hundred thousand officers to lead thim. Besides which every wan knows that the Irish don't want leadin'. 'Tis thim shows the way whin it comes to a charrge. An' sure, as it is, all the Ginirals, exceptin' for an odd wan or two, bees Irish!"
"Is that you, Biddy? Will yez come in out of that now?"
"Och, that's Himself now. He must be betther! Good-day to yez, Mrs. Flanagan, and many thanks to ye."