wretched bill I owe you----"

"I am not then. Nor I won't mention it to you until such time as you
might be able to pay it. If so be that things turn out the way you say I
shouldn't care----"

"If you keep Gallagher waiting too long for his drink," said Dr.
O'Grady, "he'll start breaking things. He must be uncommonly thirsty
after all the speeches he made this afternoon."

"That's true," said Doyle. "I'd maybe better go to him."

Constable Moriarty stood just outside the door of the hotel. He saluted
Major Kent as he passed. He touched his hat respectfully to Father
McCormack. He saw Gallagher come downstairs and enter the bar. A few
minutes later he saw Dr. O'Grady. All traces of his usual smile vanished
from his face. He drew himself up stiffly, and his eyes expressed
something more than official severity. When Dr. O'Grady passed through
the door into the street, Moriarty confronted him.

"I'm glad to see," said Dr. O'Grady, "that you've stopped grinning. It's
quite time you did."

"It's not grins I'm talking about now," said Moriarty. "It's Mary
Ellen."

"Nice little girl, isn't she?"

"It's a nice little girl you'll make of her before you've done! What's
this I'm after hearing about the way you have in mind for dressing her
up?"

"Do be reasonable, Moriarty! What's the good of asking me what you've
heard? I can't possibly know, for I wasn't there when you heard it."

"You know well what I heard."

"Look here, Moriarty," said Dr. O'Grady. "If you think I'm going to
stand here to be bullied by you in the public street you're greatly
mistaken. Why don't you go and patrol somewhere?"

"I'll not have Mary Ellen play-acting before the Lord-Lieutenant, so now
you know, doctor."

"There's no play-acting to be done," said Dr. O'Grady. "We haven't even
had time to get up a pageant. I wish we had. You'd look splendid as
a Roman Emperor trampling on a conquered people. I'm not sure that I
wouldn't get you up as an Assyrian bull. The expression of your face is
just right this minute."

"Mary Ellen's an orphan girl," said Moriarty, "with no father to look
after her, and what's more I'm thinking of marrying her myself. So it's
as well for you to understand, doctor, that I'll not have her character
took from her. It's not the first time you've tried that same, but it
had better be the last."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Moriarty. There's nobody
injuring the girl's character except, maybe, yourself.