ing were Irishmen. I've always noticed that
when anything really dirty is done in Ireland, it's an Irishman who does
it...."

"A rotten Unionist!..."

"Irish, all the same! The only thing that you Irish are united about is
your habit of blaming the English for your own faults and misbehaviour.
If I had the fellow who was responsible for this business I'd shoot him
out of hand. I wouldn't think twice about it. If a man is such an ass as
all that, he ought to be put out of the world quick. But then I'm
English. The Irish'll make a case out of him. They'll orate over him,
and they'll get frightfully cross for a fortnight, and then they'll do
nothing. You know as well as I do, Quinny, that the English aren't
unfriendly to the Irish, that they really are anxious to do the decent
thing by Ireland. It isn't us: it's you. We're not against you ...
you're against yourselves. There are about seventy-five different
parties in Ireland, aren't there, and they all hate each other like
poison?"

"I wonder if John Marsh was hurt!..."

"I don't suppose so. There'd have been some reference to him in the
paper if he'd been hurt."

"This was what he was hinting at when I saw him in Dublin," Henry went
on. "He talked about 'doubling it' and said that two could play at that
game!"

He was calmer now, and able to talk about the Dublin shooting with some
discrimination.

"I don't know why they want to 'run' guns at all," he said. "The
tit-for-tat style of politics seems a fairly foolish one.... I think I
shall go back to Ireland to-morrow, Gilbert. I feel as if I ought to be
there. This business won't end where it is now. I know what John Marsh
and Galway and Mineely are like. Whatever bitterness was in them before
will be increased enormously by this. Mineely's an Ulsterman, and he'll
make somebody pay for this. He doesn't say much ... he's like Connolly
... Connolly's the brains behind Larkin ... but he keeps things inside
him, deep down, but safe, so that he can always get at them when he
wants them!"

"What sort of man is he, Quinny?" Gilbert asked. "I didn't see him when
we were in Dublin."

"He looks like a comfortable tradesman, and he's a kindly sort of chap.
You'd never dream that he was an agitator or that he'd want to lead a
rebellion. I don't believe he likes that work, either. I think that
inside him his chief desire is for a decent house with a garden, where
he can grow sweet peas and cabbages and sit in the evening