Part 22 (1/2)

It has fetched the audience.”

”Awkward situation for you,” I said.

”We'll have to do something,” said Gorman.

”Arrest the ringleaders? Imprison Malcolmson?”

”Lord, no. We may be fools, but we're not such fools as that.”

”Still,” I said, ”he's broken the law. After all, a party like yours in close alliance with the Government of the country must do something to maintain the majesty of the law.”

”Law be d.a.m.ned,” said Gorman. ”What the devil does law matter to us or the Government either? What we've got to consider is popular opinion.”

”And that,” I said, ”seems to be setting against you. According to the theory of democracy as I understand it, you're bound to go the way popular opinion is blowing you. You can't, without gross inconsistency, start beating to windward against it.”

”Winds sometimes change,” said Gorman.

”They do. This one has. It was all in your favour a fortnight ago.

Now, what with your 'plot' and this really striking little episode in Larne----”

”The art of government,” said Gorman, ”consists in manipulating the wind, making it blow the way it's wanted to. What we've got to do is to go one better than the Ulster men.”

”Ah,” I said, ”they imported rifles. You might land a s.h.i.+pload of large cannons. Is that the idea?”

”They needn't necessarily be real cannons. I don't think our funds would run to real cannons. Besides, what good would they be when we had them? But you've got the main idea all right. Our game is to pull off something which will startle the blessed British public, impress it with the fact that we're just as desperate as the other fellows.”

”What about the police?” I said. ”The police have always had a down on your side. It's a tradition in the force.”

”The police aren't fools,” said Gorman. ”They know jolly well that any policemen who attempted to interfere with our coup, whatever it may be, would simply be dismissed. After all, we're not doing any harm. We're not going to shoot any one. We're simply going to influence public opinion. Every one has a right to do that. By the way, did I mention that my play is being revived? Talking of public opinion reminded me of it. It had quite a success when it was first put on.”

Gorman is charming. He never sticks to one subject long enough to be really tiresome.

”I'm delighted to hear it,” I said. ”I hope it will-do even better this time.”

”It ought to,” said Gorman. ”We've got a capital press agent, and, of course, my name is far better known than it was. It isn't every day the public gets a play written by a Member of Parliament.”

”Where is it to be produced?” ”The Parthenon. Good big house.”

The Parthenon is one of the largest of the London Music Halls. Gorman's play was, I suppose, to take its place in the usual way between an exhibition of pretty frocks with orchestral accompaniment and an imitation of the Russian dancers.

”I shall be there,” I said, ”on the first night. You can count on my applause.”

It occurred to me after Gorman left me that the revival of his play offered me an excellent opportunity of entertaining the Aschers. Ascher had been exceedingly kind to me in giving me letters of introduction to all the leading bankers in South America. Mrs. Ascher had been steadily friendly to me. I owed them something and had some difficulty about the best way of paying the debt. I did not care to ask them to dinner in my rooms in Clarges Street. My landlord keeps a fairly good cook, and I could, I daresay, have bought some wine which Ascher would have drunk.

But I could not have managed any kind of entertainment afterwards. I did not like to give them dinner at a restaurant without taking them on to the theatre; and the Aschers are rather superior to most plays. I had no way of knowing which they would regard as real drama. The revival of Gorman's play solved my difficulty. I knew that Mrs. Ascher regarded him as an artist and that Ascher had the highest respect for his brilliant and paradoxical Irish mind. After luncheon I took a taxi and drove out to Hampstead. I owed a call at the house in any case and, if Mrs.

Ascher happened to be at home, I could arrange the whole matter with her in the way that would suit her best.

Mrs. Ascher was at home. She was in the studio, a large bare room at the back of the house. Gorman was with her.

I saw at once that Mrs. Ascher was in a highly emotional condition. I suspected that Gorman had been talking to her about the latest wrong that had been done to Ireland, his Ireland, by the other part of Ireland which neither he nor Mrs. Ascher considered as Ireland at all. On the table in the middle of the room there was a little group on which Mrs.

Ascher had been at work earlier in the day. A female figure stood with its right foot on the neck of a very disagreeable beast, something like a pig, but p.r.i.c.k-eared and hairy. It had one horn in the middle of its forehead. The female figure was rather well conceived. It was appealing, with a sort of triumphant confidence, to some power above, heaven perhaps. The p.r.i.c.k-eared pig looked sulky.