with his wife
and children. He has more balanced knowledge than most of the people he
works with. Marsh and Galway have had a better education than Mineely,
but they haven't had his experience or his knowledge of men, and so they
can't check their enthusiasm. He was in America for a long while, and
he's lived in England, too. He wrote a quite good book on the Irish
Labour Movement that would have been better if he'd made more allowance
for the nature of the times. If the employers hadn't behaved so brutally
over the strike, Mineely might have become the solvent of a lot of
ill-will in Ireland; but they made a bitter man out of him then, and I
suppose it's too late now. He'll go on, getting more and more bitter
until.... Do you remember that story by H. G. Wells, Gilbert, called 'In
the Days of the Comet'?"

"Is that the green vapour story?"

"Yes. Well, we want a green vapour very badly in Ireland, something to
obliterate every memory and leave us all with fresh minds!"

"Miracle-mongering won't lead you very far, Quinny. It's no good howling
for a vapour to heal you. You've just got to take your blooming memories
and cure 'em yourselves, by the sweat of your brows! And, look here,
Quinny, there doesn't seem any good reason why you should dash back to
Ireland because of this business. I always think that the worst row in
the world would never have come to anything if people hadn't done what
you propose to do, rushed into it just because they thought they ought
to be there. They congest things ... they use up the air and make the
place feel stuffy ... and then they get cross, and somebody shoves
somebody else, and before they know where they are, they're splitting
each other's skulls. If they'd only remained dispersed...."

"But I'd like to be there!..."

"I know you would. We'd all like to be there, so's we could say
afterwards we'd seen the whole thing from beginning to end. That's just
why we shouldn't be there. It isn't the principals in the row that make
all the trouble, Quinny ... it's the blooming spectators!..."

4

He let himself be persuaded by Gilbert to stay in Wales, and they spent
the next two or three days in tramping about the island of Anglesey. The
days were bright and sunny, and the rich sparkle of the sea tempted them
frequently to the water. There were many visitors at the hotel, some of
whom were Irish people from Dublin, but mostly they came from Liverpool
and Manchester; and with several