they know more than me father. If they'd do what me father tells them
sure there'd be no more throuble in Ireland at all."

"Really?" said Jerry, quite interestedly.

"Not a bit of throuble. I wish me father was here to explain it to ye.
He could tell ye the whole thing in a couple of hours. I wish he were
here now just to give you an example of what fine speakin' really is.
Do you like speeches?"

"Very much--sometimes," replied Jerry, guardedly.

"Me father is wondherful on a platform with a lot o' people in front of
him. He's wondherful. I've seen him take two or three hundred people
who didn't know they had a grievance in the wurrld--the poor
cratures--they were just contented to go on bein' ground down and
trampled on and they not knowing a thing about it--I've seen me father
take that crowd and in five minutes, afther he had started spakin' to
them ye wouldn't know they were the same people. They were all shoutin'
at once, and they had murther in their eye and it was blood they were
afther. They wanted to reform somethin'--they weren't sure what--but
they wanted to do it--an' at the cost of life. Me father could have led
them anywhere. It's a wondherful POWER he was. And magnetism. He just
looks at the wake wuns an' they wilt. He turns to the brave wuns and
they're ready to face cannon-balls for him. He's a born leader--that's
what he is, a born leader!" She warmed to her subject: she was on her
hobby-horse and she would ride it as far as this quiet stranger would
let her. She went on again:

"Ye know the English government are very much frightened of me father.
They are indade. They put him in prison once--before I was born. They
were so afraid of him they put him in prison. I wish ye could see him!"
she said regretfully.

"I am sure I wish I could--with all my heart. You have really aroused
my keenest interest," said Jerry gravely. "He must be a very remarkable
man," he added.

"That's what he is," agreed Peg warmly. "An' a very wondherful lookin'
man, too. He's a big, upstandin' man, with gold hair goin' grey, an' a
flashin' eye an' a great magnetic voice. Everybody sez 't's the
MAGNETISM in him that makes him so dangerous. An' he's as bold as a
lion. He isn't frightened of anybody. He'll say anything right to your
face. Oh, I wish ye could just meet him. He's not afraid to make any
kind of a speech--whether it's right or not, so long as it's for the
'Cause.' Do yez like hearin' about me father?" she a