“You know,” he said, “the Government make a great mistake putting men like you into prison. You will never forget it; you can never forget it; no man could who canvasses experience with his intellect. They’re simply a lot of grandfatherly old fools at the top of affairs, and we always make a muddle of things. They should either give you a clear run, and let you make what you can of your country and take the chances; or they should wait their chance and shoot you out of hand and laugh at the racket afterwards. But all this sentimental talk about your country, followed up by all this muddle, simply makes a thinking man sick. All this business,” and he indicated the hundreds of us standing talking about the yard, “is clumsy, it’s idiocy, and it breeds more clumsiness and idiocy for the future.”
“Which of your two alternatives would you adopt?” I asked him.
“Well, you know, one likes to meet a man to whom one can talk; intellect, and all that sort of thing, and culture, and care for art, they’re rare enough in this world, and one wouldn’t altogether care to take the responsibility of destroying any part of it—”
“Yes, I think I would.” He was quite serious. “Quite possibly that’s because I’ve just been seeing a lot of blood; and I don’t think I would have said that two years ago. But just now I’d shoot you. I wouldn’t of course do it in a stupid way. I’d wait till you gave me a chance; and sooner or later you would, for you have your convictions, and they’d lead you into my hand; and then I’d shoot you instantly, and without trial if need be, without waiting anyhow. Of course there’d be trouble afterwards, but I’d wait quietly till that blew over, as it would.”
“That wouldn’t get you out of the wood, for you’d make a martyr of me and exploit my ideals.”
“That’s so. There’s that side, of course. But still that’s what I think I’d do. I certainly wouldn’t go muddling about trying to do two mutually contradictory things at the same time. All you men here—the whole thing’s simply offensive.”
“Does the hypocrisy offend you then? You ought to have become accustomed to that by this time as a nation.”
“Well, yes, in a way it does, I suppose. But it’s not that mainly; it’s the clumsy thinking; it’s not thinking the thing out from the beginning. Do I horrify you?”