nd spend their savings on machine guns. The regular soldier
has his guns bought for him with other people's money. He does not
mind much if no gory dividend is earned. McConkey, on the other hand,
spends his own money, and being a business man, will hate to see it
wasted. He would not be satisfied, I imagine, with less than fifty
corpses per cent. as a return on his expenditure.

At dinner that evening Conroy made a suggestion for our evening's
entertainment.

"Lady Moyne," he said, "ought to read us the speech which she is to
make next week to the Unionist women."

I had never heard of the Unionist women before, and knew nothing of
their wish to be spoken to. The Dean assured me that they were
numerous and quite as enthusiastic as their husbands and brothers.
Cahoon said that he was giving his mill hands a half holiday in order
that the girls might go to listen to Lady Moyne. Babberly struck in
with a characteristic speech.

"The influence of women," he said, "can hardly be over-estimated. We
must never forget that the most impressionable years of a man's life
are those during which he is learning to say his prayers beside his
mother's knee."

This, as I recognized was a mere paraphrase of the proverb which
states that the hand which rocks the cradle rules the world. The
secret of Babberly's great success as an orator is that he has a
striking power of putting platitudes into new words.

I ventured to suggest that, so far as the present political situation
was concerned it was hardly worth while trying to get at the children
who were learning to say their prayers. The Home Rule Bill would be
either rejected or passed long before any of that generation had
votes. Lady Moyne was good enough to smile at me; but Babberly felled
me at once.

"The women whom we expect to influence," he said, "have fathers,
brothers and husbands as well as young children."

After dinner we had the speech. A secretary, who had once been Lady
Moyne's governess and still wore pince-nez, brought a quantity of
type-written matter into the drawing-room. Moyne wanted me to slip
away with him to the billiard room; but I refused to do so. I wanted
to watch Lady Moyne making her speech. I am glad that I resisted his
appeal. Lady Moyne not only read us the speech. She delivered it to
us, treated us, indeed, to a rehearsal, I might even call it a dress
rehearsal, for she described at some length the clothes she intended
to wear. They must have