in with Mrs. Ascher."

He winked at me as he said this. I like Gorman's way of adding
explanatory winks to his remarks. I should frequently miss the meaning,
the full meaning of what he says if he did not help out his words with
these expressive winks. This time he made me understand that he had no
great affection for Mrs. Ascher, regarded her rather as a joke which
had worn thin; but hoped to pick up from her some information about her
husband's subtle schemes. I knew his hopes were vain. In the first place
the Aschers do not talk business to each other and she knows nothing of
what he is doing. In the next place Ascher had no underhand plot with
regard to the cash register. He was acting in a perfectly open
and straightforward way. But Gorman cannot believe that any one is
straightforward. That is one of the drawbacks to the profession of
politics. The practice of it destroys a man's faith in human honesty.

"How's Tim?" I asked. "Last time I saw him he was in great trouble
because Mrs. Ascher said he was committing blasphemy."

"Tim's in England," said Gorman. "I was rather angry with him myself for
a while. If he had followed my advice about the cash register----. But
Tim always was a fool about money, though he has brains of a sort, lots
of them."

"Still working with that circus?"

"Oh, dear no. Left that months ago. He got some money. No, I didn't give
it to him. I fancy it must have been Ascher. Anyhow he's got it. He's
down in Hertfordshire now, living in a barn."

"Why? A barn seems an odd place to live in. Draughty, I should think."

"He wanted space," said Gorman, "a great deal of space to work at his
experiments. I'm inclined to think there may be something in this new
idea of his."

"The living picture idea? Making real ghosts of the figures?"

"That's it. And, do you know, he's getting at it. He showed me some
perfectly astonishing results the other day. If he pulls it off----"

"You won't let Ascher get hold of it this time," I said.

Gorman frowned.

"I wouldn't let Ascher touch it if I could help it, but what the devil
can I do? We shall want capital and I suppose Ascher is no worse than
the rest of them."

By "them" Gorman evidently meant capitalists in general and financiers
in particular.

"That's the way," he said. "Not only do these scoundrels control
politics, reducing the whole system of democracy to a farce----"

"Come now," I said, "don't blame the capitalists for that. Demo