it? If the thing works all
right, what's the sense of tinkering with it?"

"That's the artistic soul," I said, "never satisfied, always reaching
upwards towards the unattained. It's the same with Mrs. Ascher."

"Of all the damned idiocies," said Gorman, "that artistic soul is the
damnedest."

I said nothing more for several minutes. I knew it would take Gorman
some time to recover from the mention of the artistic soul. When I
thought he had regained his self-possession I went on speaking.

"My idea," I said, "is to hire a small hall, and to invite a number of
well-off people to see Tim's show. You'll want money in the end, you
know."

"Not much," said Gorman. "A few thousands will be enough. It isn't as if
we had to manufacture anything."

"If you get what you want," I said, "in small sums from a number of
people, you'll be able to keep control of the thing yourself, and you
needn't be afraid of Ascher. Not that I believe Ascher would swindle,
you. I think Ascher's an honest man."

"Ascher's a financier," said Gorman. "That's enough for me."

CHAPTER XIII.

I never suspected Malcolmson of the cheap kind of military ardour which
shows itself in the girding on of swords after the hour of danger is
past. He is the kind of man who likes taking risks, and I have not
the slightest doubt that if he had really known beforehand that the
Government was "plotting" to invade Ulster he would have been found
entrenched, with a loaded rifle beside him, on the north bank of the
Boyne. What I did think, when he left London suddenly to place himself
at the head of his men, was that he had been a little carried away by
the excitement of the times; that he was moved, as many people are, when
startling events happen, to do something, without any very distinct
idea of what is to be done. But even that suspicion wronged Malcolmson.
Either he or some one else had devised an effective counterplot;
effective considered as a second act in a comic opera. Perhaps I ought
not to say comic opera. There is a certain reasonableness in the schemes
of every comic opera. Our affairs in the early part of 1914 were moving
through an atmosphere like that of "Alice in Wonderland." The Government
was a sort of Duchess, affecting to regard Ulster as the baby which was
beaten when it sneezed because it could if it chose thoroughly enjoy
the pepper of Home Rule. The Opposition, on the other hand, with its eye
also on Ulster, kept saying in tones