00 trained men before being made a colonel as
afterwards."

"You don't understand politics," said Gorman. "In politics there must
be a foundation of some sort for every fact. It needn't be much of a
foundation, but there must be some."

"Hard on the Irish people," I said, "being put to all that trouble and
bother just to make a foundation."

"Not at all," said Gorman. "They'll like it. But I hope to goodness that
fanatic woman won't insist on our buying guns. It would be the devil
and all if the fellows I'm thinking about got guns in their hands. You
simply couldn't tell what they'd do. You'll have to try and keep Mrs.
Ascher quiet."

"I'm going to ask her to dine with me and go to see your play," I said.
"That may distract her mind from guns for a while."

"You use your influence with her," said Gorman. "I've the greatest
belief in influence."

He has.

CHAPTER XIV.

That evening I wrote my invitation to the Aschers. They immediately
accepted it, expressing the greatest pleasure at the prospect of seeing
Gorman's play again.

I arranged to have dinner at the Berkeley and ordered it with some care,
avoiding as far as I could the more sumptuous kinds of restaurant food,
and drawing on my recollection of the things Ascher used to eat when
Gorman ordered his dinner for him on the Cunard steamer. With the help
of the head waiter I chose a couple of wines and hoped that Ascher would
drink them. As it turned out he preferred Perrier water. But that was
not my fault. No restaurant in London could have supplied the delicate
Italian white wines which Ascher drinks in his own house.

We dawdled over dinner and I lengthened the business out as well as I
could by smoking three cigarettes afterwards, very slowly. I did not
want to reach the Parthenon in time for the musical display of new
frocks. I could not suppose that Ascher was interested in seeing a
number of young women parading along a platform through the middle of
the theatre even though they wore the latest creations of Paris fancy
in silks and lingerie. I knew that Mrs. Ascher would feel it her duty to
make some sort of protest against the music of the orchestra.

Gorman had told me the hour at which his play might be expected to
begin and my object was to hit off the time exactly. Unfortunately I
miscalculated and got to the theatre too soon. The last of the young
women was waving a well-formed leg at the audience as we entered the
box I had engaged.