He appealed to his past record as a Nationalist, and to his publicly reiterated expressions of sympathy with the Boer cause.
He asked the audience to trust him to do what was right, but he neither said Yes nor No to the question he was asked.
Augusta Goold stood calm and impassive while he spoke.

A sneer gathered on her lips and indrawn nostrils as he made his appeal for the people's confidence.

When he had finished she said, very slowly, and with that extreme distinctness of articulation which women speakers seem to learn so much more easily than men: 'Are you prepared to give any portion of the money entrusted to you by the Irish people to assist the Boers in their struggle for freedom ?' Mr.O'Rourke was goaded into attempting another speech, but the audience was in no mood to listen to him.

He was interrupted again and again with shouts of 'Yes or no!' 'Answer the question!' The bantering tone with which they had plied him earlier in the evening with suggestions for a menu had changed now into angry insistence.

He passed his hand over his forehead with a gesture of despair, and sat down.