instead of wasting
his time over public meetings and statues and the like it would be
better. Not that I'd say a word against the statue, or, for the matter
of that, against the doctor, who's well liked in the town by all
classes."

The Tuesday fixed for the meeting was a well chosen day. It was the
occasion of one of the largest fairs held in Ballymoy during the year.
The country people, small farmers and their wives, flock into the town
whenever there is a fair. The streets are thronged with cattle lowing
miserably. "Buyers," men whose business it is to carry the half-fed
Connacht beasts to the fattening pastures of Meath and Kildare, assemble
in large numbers and haggle over prices from early dawn till noon.
No better occasion for the exploitation of a cause could possibly
be chosen. And three o'clock was a very good hour. By that time the
business of the fair is well over. The buying and selling is finished.
But no one has gone home, and no one is more than partially drunk. It
is safe to expect that everybody will welcome the entertainment that a
meeting affords during the dull time which must intervene between the
finishing of the day's business and the weary journey home.

The green posters were distributed far and wide. They adorned every
gatepost and every wall sufficiently smooth to hold them within a circle
of three miles radius around the town. There was some talk beforehand
about the meeting. But on the whole the people displayed very little
curiosity about General John Regan. It was taken for granted that he had
been in some way associated with the cause of Irish Nationality, and one
or two people professed to recollect that he had fought on the side of
the Boers during the South African War. Whoever he was, the people
were inclined to support the movement for erecting a statue to him by
cheering anything which Thady Gallagher said. But they did not intend to
support it in any other way. The Connacht farmer is like the rest of the
human race in his dislike of being asked to subscribe to anything. He is
superior to most other men in his capacity for resisting the pressure of
the subscription list.

On the Saturday before the meeting Gallagher published a long article
on the subject of the General in the Connacht Eagle. It was read, as all
Gallagher's articles were, with respectful attention. Everybody expected
to find out by reading it who the General was. Everyone felt, as he read
it, or listened to it