Augusta Goold chuckled over it as she grasped its consequences.

Mr.O'Rourke, Tim argued, would be unwilling to accept the proposal because he wanted all the money he could get, more than was at all likely to be collected.
He would be equally unwilling to reject it, because he could then be represented as indifferent to the heroic struggle of the Boers.

In the existing state of Irish and American opinion a suspicion of such indifference would be quite sufficient to wreck his chances of getting any money at all.
Of course, the obvious way of making such a proposal would have been by letter to Mr.O'Rourke.

Afterwards the correspondence--he must make a reply of some sort--could be sent to the press, and sufficient publicity would be given to the matter.

This was what Tim Halloran wanted to do, but such a course did not commend itself to Augusta Goold.