He told her he was never going any more to roam.
And onward through the happy years, till he grew old and
grey,
He never once regretted those brave words he once did say:
It's a long way back to mother's knee--"

The last high note screeched across the room like a shell, and the
applause that followed was like a shell's bursting. One could hardly
have recognised the refined interior of the Cosmopolis dining-room. Fair
women were waving napkins; brave men were hammering on the tables with
the butt-end of knives, for all the world as if they imagined themselves
to be in one of those distressing midnight-revue places. Miss Huskisson
bowed, retired, returned, bowed, and retired again, the tears
streaming down her ample face. Over in a corner Archie could see his
brother-in-law clapping strenuously. A waiter, with a display of manly
emotion that did him credit, dropped an order of new peas.

"Thirty years ago last October," said Mr. Connolly, in a shaking voice,
"I--"

Mr. Brewster interrupted him violently.

"I'll fire that orchestra-leader! He goes to-morrow! I'll fire--" He
turned on Archie. "What the devil do you mean by it, you--you--"

"Thirty years ago," said Mr. Connolly, wiping away a tear with his
napkin, "I left me dear old home in the old country--"

"MY hotel a bear-garden!"

"Frightfully sorry and all that, old companion--"

"Thirty years ago last October! 'Twas a fine autumn evening the finest
ye'd ever wish to see. Me old mother, she came to the station to see me
off."

Mr. Brewster, who was not deeply interested in Mr. Connolly's old
mother, continued to splutter inarticulately, like a firework trying to
go off.

"'Ye'll always be a good boy, Aloysius?' she said to me," said Mr.
Connolly, proceeding with, his autobiography. "And I said: 'Yes, Mother,
I will!'" Mr. Connolly sighed and applied the napkin again. "'Twas a
liar I was!" he observed, remorsefully. "Many's the dirty I've played
since then. 'It's a long way back to Mother's knee.' 'Tis a true word!"
He turned impulsively to Mr. Brewster. "Dan, there's a deal of trouble
in this world without me going out of me way to make more. The strike is
over! I'll send the men back tomorrow! There's me hand on it!"

Mr. Brewster, who had just managed to co-ordinate his views on the
situation and was about to express them with the generous strength which
was ever his custom when dealing with his son-in-law, checked himse