"Well, isn't it so? Here's all this Ulster gun-running--you heard how
she talked of it? Isn't it enough to drive the south into open
revolt?..."

"Is there very much, do you think, in the suggestion that some of this
Ulster trouble is a German intrigue? You and Mr. Philbert were saying
things--"

"I don't know," said Mr. Britling shortly.

"I don't know," he repeated. "But it isn't because I don't think our
Unionists and their opponents aren't foolish enough for anything of the
sort. It's only because I don't believe that the Germans are so stupid
as to do such things.... Why should they?...

"It makes me--expressionless with anger," said Mr. Britling after a
pause, reverting to his main annoyance. "They won't consider any
compromise. It's sheer love of quarrelling.... Those people there think
that nothing can possibly happen. They are like children in a nursery
playing at rebellion. Unscathed and heedless. Until there is death at
their feet they will never realise they are playing with loaded
guns...."

For a time he said no more; and listened perfunctorily while Mr. Direck
tried to indicate the feeling in New England towards the Irish Question
and the many difficult propositions an American politician has to face
in that respect. And when Mr. Britling took up the thread of speech
again it had little or no relation to Mr. Direck's observations.