Sec. 7. { Cause } { in forces } Regular forces,
(I) { Consipiring } { belonging } Reserve forces,
{ with other } a mutiny { to Her } Auxiliary forces.
{ persons to } sedition { Majesty’s } Navy.
{ cause }
When three obscure gentlemen in San Francisco argued on insufficient
premises they condemned a fellow-creature to a most unpleasant death in
a far country, which had nothing whatever to do with the United States.
They foregathered at the top of a tenement-house in Tehama Street, an
unsavoury quarter of the city, and, there calling for certain drinks,
they conspired because they were conspirators by trade, officially known
as the Third Three of the I.A.A.--an institution for the propagation
of pure light, not to be confounded with any others, though it is
affiliated to many. The Second Three live in Montreal, and work among
the poor there; the First Three have their home in New York, not far
from Castle Garden, and write regularly once a week to a small house
near one of the big hotels at Boulogne. What happens after that, a
particular section of Scotland Yard knows too well, and laughs at. A
conspirator detests ridicule. More men have been stabbed with Lucrezia
Borgia daggers and dropped into the Thames for laughing at Head Centres
and Triangles than for betraying secrets; for this is human nature.
The Third Three conspired over whisky cocktails and a clean sheet of
notepaper against the British Empire and all that lay therein. This work
is very like what men without discernment call politics before a general
election. You pick out and discuss, in the company of congenial friends,
all the weak points in your opponents’ organisation, and unconsciously
dwell upon and exaggerate all their mishaps, till it seems to you a
miracle that the hated party holds together for an hour.
‘Our principle is not so much active demonstration--that we leave to
others--as passive embarrassment, to weaken and unnerve,’ said the first
man. ‘Wherever an organisation is crippled, wherever a confusion is
thrown into any branch of any department, we gain a step for those
who take on the work; we are but the forerunners.’ He was a German
enthusiast, and editor of a newspaper, from whose leading articles he
quoted frequently.
‘That cursed Empire makes so many blunders of her own that unless we
doubled the year’s average I guess it wouldn’t strike her anything
special had occurred,’ said the second man. ‘Are you prepared to
say that all our resources are equal to blowing off the muzzle of a
hundred-ton gun or spiking a ten-thousand-ton ship on a plain rock in
clear daylight? They can beat us at our own game. ‘Better join hands
with the practical branches; we’re in funds now. Try a direct scare in a
crowded street. They value their greasy hides.’ He was the drag upon the
wheel, and an Americanised Irishman of the second generation, despising
his own race and hating the other. He had learned caution.
The third man drank his cocktail and spoke no word. He was the
strategist, but unfortunately his knowledge of life was limited. He
picked a letter from his breast-pocket and threw it across the table.
That epistle to the heathen contained some very concise directions from
the First Three in New York. It said--
‘The boom in black iron has already affected the eastern markets, where
our agents have been forcing down the English-held stock among the
smaller buyers who watch the turn of shares. Any immediate operations,
such as western bears, would increase their willingness to unload.
This, however, cannot be expected till they see clearly that foreign
iron-masters are witting to co-operate. Mulcahy should be dispatched
to feel the pulse of the market, and act accordingly. Mavericks are at
present the best for our purpose.--P.D.Q.’
As a message referring to an iron crisis in Pennsylvania, it was
interesting, if not lucid. As a new departure in organised attack on an
outlying English dependency, it was more than interesting.