the
_Newsletter_ would seem, by comparison, papescent.

"We're running it as a weekly," said McNeice, "and what we want is to
get it into the home of every Protestant farmer, and every working-man
in Belfast. We are circulating the first six numbers free. After that
we shall charge a penny."

I looked at _The Loyalist_. It was very well printed, on good paper.
It looked something like _The Spectator_, but had none of the pleasant
advertisements of schools and books, and much fewer pages of
correspondence than the English weekly has.

"Surely," I said, "you can't expect it to pay at that price."

"We don't," said McNeice. "We've plenty of money behind us.
Conroy--you know Conroy, don't you?"

"Oh," I said, "then Lady Moyne got a subscription out of him after
all. I knew she intended to."

"Lady Moyne isn't in this at all," said McNeice. "We're out for
business with _The Loyalist_. Lady Moyne's--well, I don't quite see
Lady Moyne running _The Loyalist_."

"She's a tremendously keen Unionist," I said. "She gave an address to
the working-women of Belfast the week before last, one of the most
moving--"

"All frills," said McNeice, "silk frills. Your friend Crossan is
acting as one of our agents, distributing the paper for us. That'll
give you an idea of the lines we're going on."

Crossan, I admit, is the last man I should suspect of being interested
in frills. The mention of his name gave me an idea.

"Was it copies of _The Loyalist_," I asked, "which were in the
packing-cases which you and Power landed that night from the
_Finola_?"

McNeice laughed.

"Come along round with me," he said, "and see the editor. He'll
interest you. He's a first-rate journalist, used to edit a rebel paper
and advocate the use of physical force for throwing off the English
rule. But he's changed his tune now. Just wait for me one moment while
I get together an article which I promised to bring him. It's all
scattered about the floor of the next room in loose sheets."

I read _The Loyalist_ while I waited. The editor was unquestionably a
first-rate journalist. His English was of a naked, muscular kind,
which reminded me of Swift and occasionally of John Mitchel. But I
could not agree with McNeice that he had changed his tune. He still
seemed to be editing a rebel paper and still advocated the use of
physical force for resisting the will of the King, Lords and Commons
of our constitution. It is the merest commonplace to say that