mallest sympathy. His ancestors were probably, almost certainly,
Roman Catholics. If he professed any form of Christianity it must have
been that of some sect unrepresented in England. No one ever heard of
his attaching himself, even temporarily, to either church or chapel.
McNeice also supplied brains and enthusiasm. His intelligence was
narrower than Conroy's, but more intensely concentrated. He knew the
men with whom he intended to deal. By birth and early education he
belonged to that north Irish democracy which is probably less
imaginative and less reasonable but more virile than any other in the
world. He believed, as his fathers had believed before him and his
relations believed along with him, that the Belfast man has a natural
right to govern the world, and only refrains from doing so because he
has more important matters to attend to. He believed, and could give
excellent reasons in support of his belief, that the other inhabitants
of Ireland were meant by providence to be Gibeonites, hewers of wood
and drawers of water for the people of Antrim and Down. He had quite
as great a contempt for the Unionist landlords, who occasionally spoke
beside him on political platforms, as he had for the Nationalist
tenants who were wrestling their estates from them.

Bob Power went to Dublin, and with great difficulty persuaded McNeice
to pay Conroy a visit in London. For a fortnight the two men remained
together, discussing, planning, devising. Others, among them James
Crossan, manager of the Kilmore Co-operative Stores, and Grand Master
of the Orangemen of the county, were summoned to the conference.

Then the first steps were taken. McNeice went back to Ireland and
began, with the aid of James Crossan, his work of organization. Conroy
sold his house in London, realized by degrees a considerable part of
his large fortune, placed sums of money to his credit in French and
German banks and gave over the command of his yacht, the _Finola_, to
Bob Power. From this time on Conroy disappeared from London society.
Stories were told in clubs and drawing-rooms about the sayings and
doings of "His Royal Magnificence J. P. C.," but these gradually grew
stale and no fresh ones were forthcoming. The newspapers still printed
from time to time paragraphs which had plainly been sent to them by
Conroy himself, but no one at the time took very much interest in
them.

"Mr. J. P. Conroy"--so people read--"has gone for a cruise in
Mediterran