atest." A mildly impatient accent alone betrayed
resentment of the snub. "I'll know in good time, long before the hour
appointed; and that ought to do, providing you on your part are prepared."

"An hour's notice will be ample," Victor agreed. "We have been ready for
days, needing only the knowledge you bring us--or will, when you have it
definitely."

The Irishman chuckled.

"It's hard to believe. Not that I'd dream of doubting your statement,
sir--but yourself won't be denying you must have worked fast to organize
England for revolution in less than three weeks."

"I have been busy," Victor admitted. "But the work was not so difficult ...
Seeds of revolution are easily sown in land thoroughly tilled by forces of
discontent. And what land has been better tilled? To vary the figure:
England is all seething beneath a thin crust of custom and established
habit whose integrity a conservative and reactionary government has ever
since the war been struggling desperately to preserve. The blow we shall
strike within three days will shatter that crust in a hundred places."

"And let Hell loose!" the Irishman added with a nervous laugh.

In a dry voice Victor commented: "Precisely."

"Omelettes," Sturm interjected, assertively, "are not made without breaking
eggs."

"And all rivers, no doubt, flow to the sea? What a lot you know, Herr
Sturm! Is it the Portfolio of the Minister of Education you've picked out
for your very own, after the explosion comes off--if it's a fair question?"

"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 Iris