Gossamer Part 21

"I want more mirrors. The ones I'm using aren't perfect. I must have others."

"The ones you have," said Gorman, "are good enough for the present.

When we get a bit further on and see how this business is going to be managed, we may get you other mirrors."

"Very well," said Tim, "I'll ask Ascher for the money. He'll give it to me. I'd have asked him a week ago only you made me promise not to take any more money from him without telling you."

"If you take money from Ascher," said Gorman, "he'll simply collar your whole invention. You'll find in the end that it will be his, not yours.

He'll get every penny that's made out of it, and then he'll tell you that you owe him more than you can pay. I've told you all along that that's what will happen if you go borrowing from Ascher."

"I don't care," said Tim, "so long as I get it perfected I don't care what happens."

"d.a.m.n!" said Gorman.

There was some excuse for him. Tim's att.i.tude was hopelessly unpractical.

"Don't you see," said Tim, "that this is a wonderful thing? It's one of the greatest things that any one has done for a long time. It's a new thing."

The note of weak obstinacy which was in his voice when he first spoke had died out of it. He was pleading with his brother as a child might beg for something from a grown-up man.

"That's exactly what I do see," said Gorman.

"Then why won't you let me perfect it? It doesn't matter--sure, you know yourself, Michael, that it doesn't matter what happens if only I get it right."

I thought for a moment that the boy was going to cry. He pulled himself together with a sort of choked sob and then suddenly flashed into a rage.

"I will ask Ascher for the money," he said. "I will, I will. d.a.m.n you, Michael! I'll give it all to Ascher, everything I have. Everything I ever invent. I'll tell him all I've found out. I'll make it his."

Then with another swift change of mood the boy turned to me and began to plead again.

"Tell him to give me the money," he said. "Or make him let me ask Ascher for it. He'll do it if you speak to him. I don't want to quarrel with Michael. I don't want to do anything he says is wrong. But I must have that money. Don't you see I must? I can't get on without it?"

"Listen to me, Tim," I said; "if I give you the 100 you want----"

"I could manage with 100," said Tim. "But it would be much better if I had 150."

"A hundred," I said, "and no more. If I give it to you, will you promise to bring that apparatus of yours up to London and exhibit your results to a few friends of mine there?"

"Yes, I will. Of course I will. May I order the new mirrors to-morrow and say that you'll pay for them?"

"You may. But remember----"

"Oh, that will be all right," said Tim. "As soon as ever it is perfected----"

"Perfect or imperfect," I said, "you've promised to show it off when I ask you to."

Gorman and I drove home together. At first he would do nothing except grumble about his brother's childish obstinacy.

"Can't understand," he said, "how any man with brains can be such a fool."

Then when he had worked off the fine edge of his irritation he began to thank me.

"It was good of you, very," he said, "to put down the money. I'd have done it myself, if I could have laid my hand on the amount he wanted.

But just at this moment I can't. All the same I don't see what good that 100 is going to do. The thing's perfect enough for all practical purposes already. I saw nothing wrong with it."

"Nor did I."

"Then what the devil does he want to do with 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 d.a.m.ned idiocies," said Gorman, "that artistic soul is the d.a.m.nedest."

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 d.u.c.h.ess, 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 of awestruck warning, "Beware the Jabberwock, my son." Malcolmson seemed to be a kind of White Knight, lovable, simple-minded, chivalrous, but a little out of place in the world.

However, Malcolmson and his friends, considered as characters in "Alice in Wonderland," were effective, far more effective than the poor White Knight ever was. They bought a lot of guns somewhere, perhaps in Hamburg. They hired a s.h.i.+p and loaded her with the guns. They sailed her into Larne Harbour and said to the Government, "Now, come on if you dare."

The Government, having previously issued a solemn proclamation forbidding the importation of arms into Ireland, took up the att.i.tude of Mr. Winkle and said it was just going to begin. It rolled up its sleeves and clenched its fists and said for the second time and with considerable emphasis that it was just going to begin, Malcolmson danced about, coat off, battle light in eye, and kept shouting: "Come on!" The Government, taking off its collar and tie, said: "Just you wait till I get at you."

Gorman took a sane, though I think incorrect, view of the situation.

"The English people," he said, "are hopeless fools. It's almost impossible to deal with them. They are actually beginning to believe that Ulster is in earnest."

"Well," I said, "that's only fair. They've been believing that you're in earnest for quite a long time now. Ulster ought to have its turn."

Gorman, though a politician, is essentially a just man. He admitted the truth of what I had said.. He went further. He admitted that Malcolmson's coup was exceedingly well conceived.

"It's just the sort of thing," he said, "which appeals to Englishmen.

Reason is wasted on them."

"Don't be too hard on the English," I said. "It's the same everywhere in the world. Government through the people, of the people, by, with, from, to and for the people, is always unreasonable."

"It's the theatrical which pays," said Gorman. "I didn't think those fellows in Belfast had brains enough to grasp that fact, but apparently they have. I must say that this gun-running performance of theirs is good. It has the quality which Americans describe as 'punch.' It has stirred the popular imagination. It has got right across the footlights.