they run about like frightened
chickens, uttering all manner of nonsense. But please God they'll forget
all about it when the war's over. They're getting tired of it already.

SIR PEARCE. No, no: it has uplifted us all in a wonderful way. The world
will never be the same again, O'Flaherty. Not after a war like this.

O'FLAHERTY. So they all say, sir. I see no great differ myself. It's all
the fright and the excitement; and when that quiets down they'll go
back to their natural divilment and be the same as ever. It's like the
vermin: it'll wash off after a while.

SIR PEARCE [rising and planting himself firmly behind the garden seat].
Well, the long and the short of it is, O'Flaherty, I must decline to be
a party to any attempt to deceive your mother. I thoroughly disapprove
of this feeling against the English, especially at a moment like the
present. Even if your mother's political sympathies are really what you
represent them to be, I should think that her gratitude to Gladstone
ought to cure her of such disloyal prejudices.

O'FLAHERTY [over his shoulder]. She says Gladstone was an Irishman, Sir.
What call would he have to meddle with Ireland as he did if he wasn't?

SIR PEARCE. What nonsense! Does she suppose Mr Asquith is an Irishman?

O'FLAHERTY. She won't give him any credit for Home Rule, Sir. She says
Redmond made him do it. She says you told her so.

SIR PEARCE [convicted out of his own mouth]. Well, I never meant her to
take it up in that ridiculous way. [He moves to the end of the garden
seat on O'Flaherty's left.] I'll give her a good talking to when she
comes. I'm not going to stand any of her nonsense.

O'FLAHERTY. It's not a bit of use, sir. She says all the English
generals is Irish. She says all the English poets and great men was
Irish. She says the English never knew how to read their own books until
we taught them. She says we're the lost tribes of the house of Israel
and the chosen people of God. She says that the goddess Venus, that was
born out of the foam of the sea, came up out of the water in Killiney
Bay off Bray Head. She says that Moses built the seven churches, and
that Lazarus was buried in Glasnevin.

SIR PEARCE. Bosh! How does she know he was? Did you ever ask her?

O'FLAHERTY. I did, sir, often.

SIR PEARCE. And what did she say?

O'FLAHERTY. She asked me how did I know he wasn't, and fetched me a
clout on the side of my head.

SIR PEARCE. But have you never mentioned any