been decided on the morning of the Rotunda meeting arrived,
and with it an answer to the multifarious 'Whys': Because O'Rourke wants
all the money to spend in the London restaurants.' There was a great
deal of laughter, and many people, quite uninterested in politics,
determined to go to the meeting in hopes of more amusement.

When Mr. O'Rourke took the chair the hall was crowded to its utmost
capacity. Under ordinary circumstances this would have augured well for
the success of his appeal, for it showed that the public were at all
events not apathetic. On this particular occasion, however, Mr. O'Rourke
would have been better pleased with a smaller audience. The placards
had shown him that something unpleasant was likely to occur, though they
afforded no hint of the form which the unpleasantness would take. When
he rose to his feet he was greeted with the usual volley of cheers, and
although some rude remarks about the Boers were made in the corners of
the hall, they did not amount to anything like an organized attempt at
interruption. He began his speech cautiously, feeling the pulse of
his audience, and plying them with the well-worn platitudes of the
Nationalist platform. When these evoked the usual enthusiasm he waxed
bolder, and shot out some almost original epigrams directed against the
Government, working up to a really new gibe about officials who sat
like spiders spinning murderous webs in Dublin Castle. The audience
were delighted with this, but their joy reached its height when someone
shouted: 'You might speak better of the men who tore down the placard
on Wednesday.' Mr. O'Rourke ignored the suggestion, and passed on to
sharpen his wit upon the landlords. He described them as 'ill-omened
tax-gatherers who suck the life-blood of the country, and refuse to
disgorge a penny of it for any useful purpose.' Mr. O'Rourke was not a
man who shrank from a mixed metaphor, or paused to consider such trifles
as the unpleasantness which would ensue if anyone who had been sucking
blood were to repent and disgorge it. 'Where,' he went on to ask, 'do
they spend their immense revenues? Is it in Ireland?' Here he made one
of those dramatic pauses for which his oratory was famous. The audience
waited breathlessly for the denunciation which was to follow. They were
treated, unexpectedly, to a well-conceived anticlimax. A voice spoke
softly, but quite clearly, from the back of the hall:

'Bedad, and I shouldn't wonder if it was