ust remembered what I was going to
say to him!"

He had finished his breakfast and left the house before Gilbert and
Henry came down from their rooms. Henry was too tired to talk much, and
Gilbert, finding him uncommunicative, made no effort to make
conversation. He picked up the _Times_ and contented himself with the
morning's news, while Henry read a letter from John Marsh which had come
by the first post.

"_I'm interested in your Improved Tories_," he wrote, "_I think the
scheme is excellent. You sharpen your wits on other people's, and you
keep in touch with all kinds of opinions. That's excellent! Your father,
and you, too, used to say we were rather one-eyed in Dublin, and I
think there's a good deal of truth in that, so I'm trying to get a
group of people in Dublin to form a society somewhat similar to your
Improved Tories. Did you ever meet a man called Arthur Griffiths when
you were here? He is a very able, but not very sociable, man, and so
people do not know him as well as they ought to ... and his tongue is
like a flail ... so that most of the people who do know him, don't like
him. The Nationalist M. P.'s detest him. Well, several years ago he
founded a society which he called the Sinn Fein Movement, and the
principle of the thing is excellent up to a point. Do you remember any
of your Gaelic? Sinn Fein means 'we ourselves,' and that is the
principle of the society. The object is to induce Irishmen to do for
themselves, things that are done for them by Englishmen. It ought to
appeal to your father. Griffiths got the idea, I think, from Hungary.
We're to withdraw our representatives from the English parliament and
start an Irish Government on the basis of a Grand Council of the County
Councils. We're to have our own consular service, our own National Bank
and Stock Exchange and Civil Service, and a mercantile marine so that we
can trade direct with other countries. And we're to nationalise the
railways and canals and bogs (which are to be reclaimed) and take over
insurance and education and so forth. All this is to be done by the
General Council of the County Councils in opposition to anything of the
sort that is done by the English Government in preparation for the day
when there is an Irish Government when, of course, the General Council
will be merged in the Government. Oh, and we're to have Protection, too!
It seems rather a lot, doesn't it? but the idea is excellent and, if
modified considerably, fai