Gorman. I did not feel that the moment was a good one for giving her
the invitation I had planned. It is impossible, without something like
indecency, to invite a woman to dinner in a restaurant while she is
meditating a barefooted pilgrimage through the wild places of Holy
Ireland.

Gorman and I left the house together. I hired a taxi to take us home so
that we could talk comfortably.

"Extraordinary woman," I said.

"Very, very. But don't let's talk about her. That was rather a good idea
of yours. May be something in it.

"I didn't know I had an idea," I said. "Are you sure you're not mixing
me up with Mrs. Ascher? She has lots."

"Not at all," said Gorman. "It was you who suggested organising the
National Volunteers."

There was at that time in Ireland a small number of extreme patriots
who rather admired Malcolmson because they thought he was going to fight
against England, and despised Gorman because they knew he was not. These
men had enrolled themselves in a semi-military organisation and called
themselves the National Volunteers. Gorman and his friends did their
best to suppress them and kept all mention of their existence out of the
English papers as far as possible. It surprised me to hear him speak in
a casual way of organising these declared enemies of his.

"You can't do that," I said. "Those fellows hate you like poison, worse
than Malcolmson does. They're--well, I should call them rebels. They
certainly won't do what you tell them."

"Oh, yes, they will, if treated properly. My idea is to flood the
organisation with reliable men, fellows we can trust. When we've got a
majority of our own people enrolled we'll tell them to elect their own
leaders, democratic idea. Army choosing its own officers. Sure to catch
on."

"Sure to, and then?"

"Oh, then they'll elect us. See? Every member of Parliament will be a
colonel. We needn't drill or anything; but there's nothing to prevent
our saying that we have 200,000 trained men. The Ulster fellows have
gone no trumps on their 100,000----"

"I should be inclined to say gone No Home Rule."

Gorman grinned.

"Gone no something," he said, "and we double them. I expect that will
set English opinion swinging round again."

"It ought to," I said, "but why bother about all these preliminaries?
Why put everybody in Ireland to the trouble of enrolling themselves in
a new organisation and electing officers and all that? It's just as
easy to say you have 200,0