read aloud, that he was learning all he wanted
to know, and did not discover until he came to talk the matter over
afterwards with his friends that he knew no more when he had read the
article than he did before.

It was not Thady Gallagher but Dr. O'Grady who wrote the article.
Thady made several attempts and then gave up the matter in despair.
Dr. O'Grady, though he was extremely busy at the time, had to do the
writing. It was very well done, and calculated to heat to the boiling
point the enthusiasm of all patriotic people. He began by praising
Thomas Emmet. He passed from him to Daniel O'Connell. He recommended
everyone to read John Mitchell's "Jail Journal." He described the great
work done for Ireland by Charles Stewart Parnell. Then he said that
General John Regan was, in his own way, at least the equal, possibly
the superior, of any of the patriots he had named. He wound up the
composition with the statement that it was unnecessary to recapitulate
the great deeds of the General, because every Irishman worthy of the
name knew all about them already.

No one read the article with more eagerness and expectation than
Gallagher himself. As the day of the meeting drew nearer he was becoming
more and more uncomfortable about his speech. He had not been able to
find out either from Doyle or from Father McCormack anything whatever
about the General. He did not want much. He was a practised orator and
could make a very small amount of information go a long way in a speech,
but he did want something, if it was only a date to which he might
attach the General's birth or death. Doyle and the priest steadily
referred him to Dr. O'Grady. From Sergeant Colgan he got nothing
except a guess that the General might have been one of the Fenians. Dr.
O'Grady, before the appearance of the article, promised that it would
contain all that anyone needed to know. After the article was published
Gallagher was ashamed to ask for further information, because he did not
want to confess himself an Irishman unworthy of the name.

Doyle also was dissatisfied and became actually restive after the
appearance of Saturday's Connacht Eagle. He was not in the least
troubled by the vagueness of the leading article. He was not one of the
speakers at the meeting, and it did not matter to him whether he knew
anything about General John Regan or not. What annoyed him was the
publication, in the advertisement columns of the paper, of a preliminary
list o