Mr Kernan was a commercial traveller of the old school which believed in the dignity of its calling. He had never been seen in the city without a silk hat of some decency and a pair of gaiters. By grace of these two articles of clothing, he said, a man could always pass muster. He carried on the tradition of his Napoleon, the great Blackwhite, whose memory he evoked at times by legend and mimicry. Modern business methods had spared him only so far as to allow him a little office in Crowe Street on the window blind of which was written the name of his firm with the address—London, E.C. On the mantelpiece of this little office a little leaden battalion of canisters was drawn up and on the table before the window stood four or five china bowls which were usually half full of a black liquid. From these bowls Mr Kernan tasted tea. He took a mouthful, drew it up, saturated his palate with it and then spat it forth into the grate. Then he paused to judge.


Mr Power, a much younger man, was employed in the Royal Irish Constabulary Office in Dublin Castle. The arc of his social rise intersected the arc of his friend's decline, but Mr Kernan's decline was mitigated by the fact that certain of those friends who had known him at his highest point of success still esteemed him as a character. Mr Power was one of these friends. His inexplicable debts were a byword in his circle; he was a debonair young man.


The car halted before a small house on the Glasnevin road and Mr Kernan was helped into the house. His wife put him to bed while Mr Power sat downstairs in the kitchen asking the children where they went to school and what book they were in. The children—two girls and a boy, conscious of their father's helplessness and of their mother's absence, began some horseplay with him. He was surprised at their manners and at their accents, and his brow grew thoughtful. After a while Mrs Kernan entered the kitchen, exclaiming:


"Such a sight! O, he'll do for himself one day and that's the holy alls of it. He's been drinking since Friday."


Mr Power was careful to explain to her that he was not responsible, that he had come on the scene by the merest accident. Mrs Kernan, remembering Mr Power's good offices during domestic quarrels, as well as many small, but opportune loans, said:


"O, you needn't tell me that, Mr Power. I know you're a friend of his, not like some of the others he does be with. They're all right so long as he has money in his pocket to keep him out from his wife and family. Nice friends! Who was he with tonight, I'd like to know?"


Mr Power shook his head but said nothing.


"I'm so sorry," she continued, "that I've nothing in the house to offer you. But if you wait a minute I'll send round to Fogarty's at the corner."


Mr Power stood up.


"We were waiting for him to come home with the money. He never seems to think he has a home at all."


"O, now, Mrs Kernan," said Mr Power, "we'll make him turn over a new leaf. I'll talk to Martin. He's the man. We'll come here one of these nights and talk it over."


She saw him to the door. The carman was stamping up and down the footpath, and swinging his arms to warm himself.


"It's very kind of you to bring him home," she said.


"Not at all," said Mr Power.


He got up on the car. As it drove off he raised his hat to her gaily.


"We'll make a new man of him," he said. "Good-night, Mrs Kernan."


Mrs Kernan's puzzled eyes watched the car till it was out of sight. Then she withdrew them, went into the house and emptied her husband's pockets.


She was an active, practical woman of middle age. Not long before she had celebrated her silver wedding and renewed her intimacy with her husband by waltzing with him to Mr Power's accompaniment. In her days of courtship Mr Kernan had seemed to her a not ungallant figure: and she still hurried to the chapel door whenever a wedding was reported and, seeing the bridal pair, recalled with vivid pleasure how she had passed out of the Star of the Sea Church in Sandymount, leaning on the arm of a jovial well-fed man, who was dressed smartly in a frock-coat and lavender trousers and carried a silk hat gracefully balanced upon his other arm. After three weeks she had found a wife's life irksome and, later on, when she was beginning to find it unbearable, she had become a mother. The part of mother presented to her no insuperable difficulties and for twenty-five years she had kept house shrewdly for her husband. Her two eldest sons were launched. One was in a draper's shop in Glasgow and the other was clerk to a tea-merchant in Belfast. They were good sons, wrote regularly and sometimes sent home money. The other children were still at school.


Mr Kernan sent a letter to his office next day and remained in bed. She made beef-tea for him and scolded him roundly. She accepted his frequent intemperance as part of the climate, healed him dutifully whenever he was sick and always tried to make him eat a breakfast. There were worse husbands. He had never been violent since the boys had grown up and she knew that he would walk to the end of Thomas Street and back again to book even a small order.


Two nights after his friends came to see him. She brought them up to his bedroom, the air of which was impregnated with a personal odour, and gave them chairs at the fire. Mr Kernan's tongue, the occasional stinging pain of which had made him somewhat irritable during the day, became more polite. He sat propped up in the bed by pillows and the little colour in his puffy cheeks made them resemble warm cinders. He apologised to his guests for the disorder of the room, but at the same time looked at them a little proudly, with a veteran's pride.


He was quite unconscious that he was the victim of a plot which his friends, Mr Cunningham, Mr M'Coy and Mr Power had disclosed to Mrs Kernan in the parlour. The idea had been Mr Power's but its development was entrusted to Mr Cunningham. Mr Kernan came of Protestant stock and, though he had been converted to the Catholic faith at the time of his marriage, he had not been in the pale of the Church for twenty years. He was fond, moreover, of giving side-thrusts at Catholicism.


Mr Cunningham was the very man for such a case. He was an elder colleague of Mr Power. His own domestic life was not very happy. People had great sympathy with him for it was known that he had married an unpresentable woman who was an incurable drunkard. He had set up house for her six times; and each time she had pawned the furniture on him.


Everyone had respect for poor Martin Cunningham. He was a thoroughly sensible man, influential and intelligent. His blade of human knowledge, natural astuteness particularised by long association with cases in the police courts, had been tempered by brief immersions in the waters of general philosophy. He was well informed. His friends bowed to his opinions and considered that his face was like Shakespeare's.


When the plot had been disclosed to her, Mrs Kernan had said:


"I leave it all in your hands, Mr Cunningham."


After a quarter of a century of married life, she had very few illusions left. Religion for her was a habit and she suspected that a man of her husband's age would not change greatly before death. She was tempted to see a curious appropriateness in his accident and, but that she did not wish to seem bloody-minded, she would have told the gentlemen that Mr Kernan's tongue would not suffer by being shortened. However, Mr Cunningham was a capable man; and religion was religion. The scheme might do good and, at least, it could do no harm. Her beliefs were not extravagant. She believed steadily in the Sacred Heart as the most generally useful of all Catholic devotions and approved of the sacraments. Her faith was bounded by her kitchen but, if she was put to it, she could believe also in the banshee and in the Holy Ghost.


The gentlemen began to talk of the accident. Mr Cunningham said that he had once known a similar case. A man of seventy had bitten off a piece of his tongue during an epileptic fit and the tongue had filled in again so that no one could see a trace of the bite.


"Well, I'm not seventy," said the invalid.


"It doesn't pain you now?" asked Mr M'Coy.


Mr M'Coy had been at one time a tenor of some reputation. His wife, who had been a soprano, still taught young children to play the piano at low terms. His line of life had not been the shortest distance between two points and for short periods he had been driven to live by his wits. He had been a clerk in the Midland Railway, a canvasser for advertisements for The Irish Times and for The Freeman's Journal, a town traveller for a coal firm on commission, a private inquiry agent, a clerk in the office of the Sub-Sheriff and he had recently become secretary to the City Coroner. His new office made him professionally interested in Mr Kernan's case.


"Pain? Not much," answered Mr Kernan. "But it's so sickening. I feel as if I wanted to retch off."


"That's the boose," said Mr Cunningham firmly.


"No," said Mr Kernan. "I think I caught a cold on the car. There's something keeps coming into my throat, phlegm or——"


"Mucus." said Mr M'Coy.


"It keeps coming like from down in my throat; sickening thing."


"Yes, yes," said Mr M'Coy, "that's the thorax."


He looked at Mr Cunningham and Mr Power at the same time with an air of challenge. Mr Cunningham nodded his head rapidly and Mr Power said:


"Ah, well, all's well that ends well."


"I'm very much obliged to you, old man," said the invalid.


Mr Power waved his hand.


"Those other two fellows I was with——"


"Who were you with?" asked Mr Cunningham.


"A chap. I don't know his name. Damn it now, what's his name? Little chap with sandy hair...."


"And who else?"


When Mr Cunningham made that remark, people were silent. It was known that the speaker had secret sources of information. In this case the monosyllable had a moral intention. Mr Harford sometimes formed one of a little detachment which left the city shortly after noon on Sunday with the purpose of arriving as soon as possible at some public-house on the outskirts of the city where its members duly qualified themselves as bona fide travellers. But his fellow-travellers had never consented to overlook his origin. He had begun life as an obscure financier by lending small sums of money to workmen at usurious interest. Later on he had become the partner of a very fat short gentleman, Mr Goldberg, in the Liffey Loan Bank. Though he had never embraced more than the Jewish ethical code his fellow-Catholics, whenever they had smarted in person or by proxy under his exactions, spoke of him bitterly as an Irish Jew and an illiterate and saw divine disapproval of usury made manifest through the person of his idiot son. At other times they remembered his good points.


"I wonder where did he go to," said Mr Kernan.


He wished the details of the incident to remain vague. He wished his friends to think there had been some mistake, that Mr Harford and he had missed each other. His friends, who knew quite well Mr Harford's manners in drinking, were silent. Mr Power said again:


"All's well that ends well."


Mr Kernan changed the subject at once.


"That was a decent young chap, that medical fellow," he said. "Only for him——"


"O, only for him," said Mr Power, "it might have been a case of seven days, without the option of a fine."


"Yes, yes," said Mr Kernan, trying to remember. "I remember now there was a policeman. Decent young fellow, he seemed. How did it happen at all?"


"It happened that you were peloothered, Tom," said Mr Cunningham gravely.


"True bill," said Mr Kernan, equally gravely.


"I suppose you squared the constable, Jack," said Mr M'Coy.


Mr Power did not relish the use of his Christian name. He was not straight-laced, but he could not forget that Mr M'Coy had recently made a crusade in search of valises and portmanteaus to enable Mrs M'Coy to fulfil imaginary engagements in the country. More than he resented the fact that he had been victimised he resented such low playing of the game. He answered the question, therefore, as if Mr Kernan had asked it.


The narrative made Mr Kernan indignant. He was keenly conscious of his citizenship, wished to live with his city on terms mutually honourable and resented any affront put upon him by those whom he called country bumpkins.


"Is this what we pay rates for?" he asked. "To feed and clothe these ignorant bostooms ... and they're nothing else."


Mr Cunningham laughed. He was a Castle official only during office hours.


"How could they be anything else, Tom?" he said.


He assumed a thick provincial accent and said in a tone of command:


"65, catch your cabbage!"


Everyone laughed. Mr M'Coy, who wanted to enter the conversation by any door, pretended that he had never heard the story. Mr Cunningham said:


"It is supposed—they say, you know—to take place in the depot where they get these thundering big country fellows, omadhauns, you know, to drill. The sergeant makes them stand in a row against the wall and hold up their plates."


He illustrated the story by grotesque gestures.


"At dinner, you know. Then he has a bloody big bowl of cabbage before him on the table and a bloody big spoon like a shovel. He takes up a wad of cabbage on the spoon and pegs it across the room and the poor devils have to try and catch it on their plates: 65, catch your cabbage."


Everyone laughed again: but Mr Kernan was somewhat indignant still. He talked of writing a letter to the papers.


"These yahoos coming up here," he said, "think they can boss the people. I needn't tell you, Martin, what kind of men they are."


Mr Cunningham gave a qualified assent.


"It's like everything else in this world," he said. "You get some bad ones and you get some good ones."


"It's better to have nothing to say to them," said Mr M'Coy. "That's my opinion!"


Mrs Kernan entered the room and, placing a tray on the table, said:


Mr Power stood up to officiate, offering her his chair. She declined it, saying she was ironing downstairs, and, after having exchanged a nod with Mr Cunningham behind Mr Power's back, prepared to leave the room. Her husband called out to her:


"And have you nothing for me, duckie?"


"O, you! The back of my hand to you!" said Mrs Kernan tartly.


"Nothing for poor little hubby!"


He assumed such a comical face and voice that the distribution of the bottles of stout took place amid general merriment.


The gentlemen drank from their glasses, set the glasses again on the table and paused. Then Mr Cunningham turned towards Mr Power and said casually:


"On Thursday night, you said, Jack."


"Thursday, yes," said Mr Power.


"Righto!" said Mr Cunningham promptly.


"We can meet in M'Auley's," said Mr M'Coy. "That'll be the most convenient place."


"But we mustn't be late," said Mr Power earnestly, "because it is sure to be crammed to the doors."


"We can meet at half-seven," said Mr M'Coy.


"Righto!" said Mr Cunningham.


"Half-seven at M'Auley's be it!"


There was a short silence. Mr Kernan waited to see whether he would be taken into his friends' confidence. Then he asked:


"What's in the wind?"


"O, it's nothing," said Mr Cunningham. "It's only a little matter that we're arranging about for Thursday."


"The opera, is it?" said Mr Kernan.


"No, no," said Mr Cunningham in an evasive tone, "it's just a little ... spiritual matter."


There was silence again. Then Mr Power said, point blank:


"To tell you the truth, Tom, we're going to make a retreat."


"Yes, that's it," said Mr Cunningham, "Jack and I and M'Coy here—we're all going to wash the pot."


He uttered the metaphor with a certain homely energy and, encouraged by his own voice, proceeded:


"You see, we may as well all admit we're a nice collection of scoundrels, one and all. I say, one and all," he added with gruff charity and turning to Mr Power. "Own up now!"


"I own up," said Mr Power.


"And I own up," said Mr M'Coy.


"So we're going to wash the pot together," said Mr Cunningham.


A thought seemed to strike him. He turned suddenly to the invalid and said:


"D'ye know what, Tom, has just occurred to me? You might join in and we'd have a four-handed reel."


"Good idea," said Mr Power. "The four of us together."


Mr Kernan was silent. The proposal conveyed very little meaning to his mind but, understanding that some spiritual agencies were about to concern themselves on his behalf, he thought he owed it to his dignity to show a stiff neck. He took no part in the conversation for a long while but listened, with an air of calm enmity, while his friends discussed the Jesuits.


"I haven't such a bad opinion of the Jesuits," he said, intervening at length. "They're an educated order. I believe they mean well too."


"They're the grandest order in the Church, Tom," said Mr Cunningham, with enthusiasm. "The General of the Jesuits stands next to the Pope."


"There's no mistake about it," said Mr M'Coy, "if you want a thing well done and no flies about it you go to a Jesuit. They're the boyos have influence. I'll tell you a case in point...."


"The Jesuits are a fine body of men," said Mr Power.


"It's a curious thing," said Mr Cunningham, "about the Jesuit Order. Every other order of the Church had to be reformed at some time or other but the Jesuit Order was never once reformed. It never fell away."


"Is that so?" asked Mr M'Coy.


"That's a fact," said Mr Cunningham. "That's history."


"Look at their church, too," said Mr Power. "Look at the congregation they have."


"The Jesuits cater for the upper classes," said Mr M'Coy.


"Of course," said Mr Power.


"Yes," said Mr Kernan. "That's why I have a feeling for them. It's some of those secular priests, ignorant, bumptious——"


"They're all good men," said Mr Cunningham, "each in his own way. The Irish priesthood is honoured all the world over."


"Not like some of the other priesthoods on the continent," said Mr M'Coy, "unworthy of the name."


"Perhaps you're right," said Mr Kernan, relenting.


"Of course I'm right," said Mr Cunningham. "I haven't been in the world all this time and seen most sides of it without being a judge of character."


The gentlemen drank again, one following another's example. Mr Kernan seemed to be weighing something in his mind. He was impressed. He had a high opinion of Mr Cunningham as a judge of character and as a reader of faces. He asked for particulars.


"O, it's just a retreat, you know," said Mr Cunningham. "Father Purdon is giving it. It's for business men, you know."


"He won't be too hard on us, Tom," said Mr Power persuasively.


"Father Purdon? Father Purdon?" said the invalid.


"O, you must know him, Tom," said Mr Cunningham stoutly. "Fine jolly fellow! He's a man of the world like ourselves."


"Ah, ... yes. I think I know him. Rather red face; tall."


"That's the man."


"And tell me, Martin.... Is he a good preacher?"


"Munno.... It's not exactly a sermon, you know. It's just kind of a friendly talk, you know, in a common-sense way."


Mr Kernan deliberated. Mr M'Coy said:


"Father Tom Burke, that was the boy!"


"O, Father Tom Burke," said Mr Cunningham, "that was a born orator. Did you ever hear him, Tom?"


"Did I ever hear him!" said the invalid, nettled. "Rather! I heard him...."


"And yet they say he wasn't much of a theologian," said Mr Cunningham.


"Is that so?" said Mr M'Coy.


"O, of course, nothing wrong, you know. Only sometimes, they say, he didn't preach what was quite orthodox."


"Ah! ... he was a splendid man," said Mr M'Coy.


"I heard him once," Mr Kernan continued. "I forget the subject of his discourse now. Crofton and I were in the back of the ... pit, you know ... the——"


"Yes, in the back near the door. I forget now what.... O yes, it was on the Pope, the late Pope. I remember it well. Upon my word it was magnificent, the style of the oratory. And his voice! God! hadn't he a voice! The Prisoner of the Vatican, he called him. I remember Crofton saying to me when we came out——"


"But he's an Orangeman, Crofton, isn't he?" said Mr Power.


"'Course he is," said Mr Kernan, "and a damned decent Orangeman too. We went into Butler's in Moore Street—faith, I was genuinely moved, tell you the God's truth—and I remember well his very words. Kernan, he said, we worship at different altars, he said, but our belief is the same. Struck me as very well put."


"There's a good deal in that," said Mr Power. "There used always to be crowds of Protestants in the chapel where Father Tom was preaching."


"There's not much difference between us," said Mr M'Coy.


"We both believe in——"


He hesitated for a moment.


"... in the Redeemer. Only they don't believe in the Pope and in the mother of God."


"But, of course," said Mr Cunningham quietly and effectively, "our religion is the religion, the old, original faith."


"Not a doubt of it," said Mr Kernan warmly.


Mrs Kernan came to the door of the bedroom and announced:


"Here's a visitor for you!"


A pale oval face came forward into the light. The arch of its fair trailing moustache was repeated in the fair eyebrows looped above pleasantly astonished eyes. Mr Fogarty was a modest grocer. He had failed in business in a licensed house in the city because his financial condition had constrained him to tie himself to second-class distillers and brewers. He had opened a small shop on Glasnevin Road where, he flattered himself, his manners would ingratiate him with the housewives of the district. He bore himself with a certain grace, complimented little children and spoke with a neat enunciation. He was not without culture.


Mr Fogarty brought a gift with him, a half-pint of special whisky. He inquired politely for Mr Kernan, placed his gift on the table and sat down with the company on equal terms. Mr Kernan appreciated the gift all the more since he was aware that there was a small account for groceries unsettled between him and Mr Fogarty. He said:


"I wouldn't doubt you, old man. Open that, Jack, will you?"


Mr Power again officiated. Glasses were rinsed and five small measures of whisky were poured out. This new influence enlivened the conversation. Mr Fogarty, sitting on a small area of the chair, was specially interested.


"Pope Leo XIII.," said Mr Cunningham, "was one of the lights of the age. His great idea, you know, was the union of the Latin and Greek Churches. That was the aim of his life."


"I often heard he was one of the most intellectual men in Europe," said Mr Power. "I mean, apart from his being Pope."


"So he was," said Mr Cunningham, "if not the most so. His motto, you know, as Pope, was Lux upon Lux—Light upon Light."


"No, no," said Mr Fogarty eagerly. "I think you're wrong there. It was Lux in Tenebris, I think—Light in Darkness."


"Allow me," said Mr Cunningham positively, "it was Lux upon Lux. And Pius IX. his predecessor's motto was Crux upon Crux—that is, Cross upon Cross—to show the difference between their two pontificates."


The inference was allowed. Mr Cunningham continued.


"Pope Leo, you know, was a great scholar and a poet."


"He had a strong face," said Mr Kernan.


"Yes," said Mr Cunningham. "He wrote Latin poetry."


"Is that so?" said Mr Fogarty.


Mr M'Coy tasted his whisky contentedly and shook his head with a double intention, saying:


"That's no joke, I can tell you."


"We didn't learn that, Tom," said Mr Power, following Mr M'Coy's example, "when we went to the penny-a-week school."


"There was many a good man went to the penny-a-week school with a sod of turf under his oxter," said Mr Kernan sententiously. "The old system was the best: plain honest education. None of your modern trumpery...."


"No superfluities," said Mr Fogarty.


He enunciated the word and then drank gravely.


"I remember reading," said Mr Cunningham, "that one of Pope Leo's poems was on the invention of the photograph—in Latin, of course."


"On the photograph!" exclaimed Mr Kernan.


He also drank from his glass.


"Well, you know," said Mr M'Coy, "isn't the photograph wonderful when you come to think of it?"


"O, of course," said Mr Power, "great minds can see things."


"As the poet says: Great minds are very near to madness," said Mr Fogarty.


Mr Kernan seemed to be troubled in mind. He made an effort to recall the Protestant theology on some thorny points and in the end addressed Mr Cunningham.


"Tell me, Martin," he said. "Weren't some of the popes—of course, not our present man, or his predecessor, but some of the old popes—not exactly ... you know ... up to the knocker?"


There was a silence. Mr Cunningham said:


"O, of course, there were some bad lots.... But the astonishing thing is this. Not one of them, not the biggest drunkard, not the most ... out-and-out ruffian, not one of them ever preached ex cathedra a word of false doctrine. Now isn't that an astonishing thing?"


"Yes, because when the Pope speaks ex cathedra," Mr Fogarty explained, "he is infallible."


"O, I know about the infallibility of the Pope. I remember I was younger then.... Or was it that——?"


Mr Fogarty interrupted. He took up the bottle and helped the others to a little more. Mr M'Coy, seeing that there was not enough to go round, pleaded that he had not finished his first measure. The others accepted under protest. The light music of whisky falling into glasses made an agreeable interlude.


"What's that you were saying, Tom?" asked Mr M'Coy.


"Papal infallibility," said Mr Cunningham, "that was the greatest scene in the whole history of the Church."


"How was that, Martin?" asked Mr Power.


Mr Cunningham held up two thick fingers.


"In the sacred college, you know, of cardinals and archbishops and bishops there were two men who held out against it while the others were all for it. The whole conclave except these two was unanimous. No! They wouldn't have it!"


"And they were a German cardinal by the name of Dolling ... or Dowling ... or——"


"Dowling was no German, and that's a sure five," said Mr Power, laughing.


"Well, this great German cardinal, whatever his name was, was one; and the other was John MacHale."


"What?" cried Mr Kernan. "Is it John of Tuam?"


"Are you sure of that now?" asked Mr Fogarty dubiously. "I thought it was some Italian or American."


"John of Tuam," repeated Mr Cunningham, "was the man."


He drank and the other gentlemen followed his lead. Then he resumed:


"There they were at it, all the cardinals and bishops and archbishops from all the ends of the earth and these two fighting dog and devil until at last the Pope himself stood up and declared infallibility a dogma of the Church ex cathedra. On the very moment John MacHale, who had been arguing and arguing against it, stood up and shouted out with the voice of a lion: 'Credo!'"


"Credo!" said Mr Cunningham. "That showed the faith he had. He submitted the moment the Pope spoke."


"And what about Dowling?" asked Mr M'Coy.


"The German cardinal wouldn't submit. He left the church."


Mr Cunningham's words had built up the vast image of the church in the minds of his hearers. His deep raucous voice had thrilled them as it uttered the word of belief and submission. When Mrs Kernan came into the room drying her hands she came into a solemn company. She did not disturb the silence, but leaned over the rail at the foot of the bed.


"I once saw John MacHale," said Mr Kernan, "and I'll never forget it as long as I live."


He turned towards his wife to be confirmed.


"I often told you that?"


"It was at the unveiling of Sir John Gray's statue. Edmund Dwyer Gray was speaking, blathering away, and here was this old fellow, crabbed-looking old chap, looking at him from under his bushy eyebrows."


Mr Kernan knitted his brows and, lowering his head like an angry bull, glared at his wife.


"God!" he exclaimed, resuming his natural face, "I never saw such an eye in a man's head. It was as much as to say: I have you properly taped, my lad. He had an eye like a hawk."


"None of the Grays was any good," said Mr Power.


There was a pause again. Mr Power turned to Mrs Kernan and said with abrupt joviality:


"Well, Mrs Kernan, we're going to make your man here a good holy pious and God-fearing Roman Catholic."


He swept his arm round the company inclusively.


"We're all going to make a retreat together and confess our sins—and God knows we want it badly."


"I don't mind," said Mr Kernan, smiling a little nervously.


Mrs Kernan thought it would be wiser to conceal her satisfaction. So she said:


"I pity the poor priest that has to listen to your tale."


Mr Kernan's expression changed.


"If he doesn't like it," he said bluntly, "he can ... do the other thing. I'll just tell him my little tale of woe. I'm not such a bad fellow——"


Mr Cunningham intervened promptly.


"We'll all renounce the devil," he said, "together, not forgetting his works and pomps."


"Get behind me, Satan!" said Mr Fogarty, laughing and looking at the others.


Mr Power said nothing. He felt completely out-generalled. But a pleased expression flickered across his face.


"All we have to do," said Mr Cunningham, "is to stand up with lighted candles in our hands and renew our baptismal vows."


"O, don't forget the candle, Tom," said Mr M'Coy, "whatever you do."


"What?" said Mr Kernan. "Must I have a candle?"


"No, damn it all," said Mr Kernan sensibly, "I draw the line there. I'll do the job right enough. I'll do the retreat business and confession, and ... all that business. But ... no candles! No, damn it all, I bar the candles!"


He shook his head with farcical gravity.


"Listen to that!" said his wife.


"I bar the candles," said Mr Kernan, conscious of having created an effect on his audience and continuing to shake his head to and fro. "I bar the magic-lantern business."


Everyone laughed heartily.


"There's a nice Catholic for you!" said his wife.


"No candles!" repeated Mr Kernan obdurately. "That's off!"


The transept of the Jesuit Church in Gardiner Street was almost full; and still at every moment gentlemen entered from the side door and, directed by the lay-brother, walked on tiptoe along the aisles until they found seating accommodation. The gentlemen were all well dressed and orderly. The light of the lamps of the church fell upon an assembly of black clothes and white collars, relieved here and there by tweeds, on dark mottled pillars of green marble and on lugubrious canvases. The gentlemen sat in the benches, having hitched their trousers slightly above their knees and laid their hats in security. They sat well back and gazed formally at the distant speck of red light which was suspended before the high altar.


In one of the benches near the pulpit sat Mr Cunningham and Mr Kernan. In the bench behind sat Mr M'Coy alone: and in the bench behind him sat Mr Power and Mr Fogarty. Mr M'Coy had tried unsuccessfully to find a place in the bench with the others and, when the party had settled down in the form of a quincunx, he had tried unsuccessfully to make comic remarks. As these had not been well received he had desisted. Even he was sensible of the decorous atmosphere and even he began to respond to the religious stimulus. In a whisper Mr Cunningham drew Mr Kernan's attention to Mr Harford, the moneylender, who sat some distance off, and to Mr Fanning, the registration agent and mayor maker of the city, who was sitting immediately under the pulpit beside one of the newly elected councillors of the ward. To the right sat old Michael Grimes, the owner of three pawnbroker's shops, and Dan Hogan's nephew, who was up for the job in the Town Clerk's office. Farther in front sat Mr Hendrick, the chief reporter of The Freeman's Journal, and poor O'Carroll, an old friend of Mr Kernan's, who had been at one time a considerable commercial figure. Gradually, as he recognised familiar faces, Mr Kernan began to feel more at home. His hat, which had been rehabilitated by his wife, rested upon his knees. Once or twice he pulled down his cuffs with one hand while he held the brim of his hat lightly, but firmly, with the other hand.


A powerful-looking figure, the upper part of which was draped with a white surplice, was observed to be struggling up into the pulpit. Simultaneously the congregation unsettled, produced handkerchiefs and knelt upon them with care. Mr Kernan followed the general example. The priest's figure now stood upright in the pulpit, two-thirds of its bulk, crowned by a massive red face, appearing above the balustrade.


Father Purdon knelt down, turned towards the red speck of light and, covering his face with his hands, prayed. After an interval, he uncovered his face and rose. The congregation rose also and settled again on its benches. Mr Kernan restored his hat to its original position on his knee and presented an attentive face to the preacher. The preacher turned back each wide sleeve of his surplice with an elaborate large gesture and slowly surveyed the array of faces. Then he said:


"For the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. Wherefore make unto yourselves friends out of the mammon of iniquity so that when you die they may receive you into everlasting dwellings."


Father Purdon developed the text with resonant assurance. It was one of the most difficult texts in all the Scriptures, he said, to interpret properly. It was a text which might seem to the casual observer at variance with the lofty morality elsewhere preached by Jesus Christ. But, he told his hearers, the text had seemed to him specially adapted for the guidance of those whose lot it was to lead the life of the world and who yet wished to lead that life not in the manner of worldlings. It was a text for business men and professional men. Jesus Christ, with His divine understanding of every cranny of our human nature, understood that all men were not called to the religious life, that by far the vast majority were forced to live in the world and, to a certain extent, for the world: and in this sentence He designed to give them a word of counsel, setting before them as exemplars in the religious life those very worshippers of Mammon who were of all men the least solicitous in matters religious.


He told his hearers that he was there that evening for no terrifying, no extravagant purpose; but as a man of the world speaking to his fellow-men. He came to speak to business men and he would speak to them in a businesslike way. If he might use the metaphor, he said, he was their spiritual accountant; and he wished each and every one of his hearers to open his books, the books of his spiritual life, and see if they tallied accurately with conscience.


Jesus Christ was not a hard taskmaster. He understood our little failings, understood the weakness of our poor fallen nature, understood the temptations of this life. We might have had, we all had from time to time, our temptations: we might have, we all had, our failings. But one thing only, he said, he would ask of his hearers. And that was: to be straight and manly with God. If their accounts tallied in every point to say:


"Well, I have verified my accounts. I find all well."


But if, as might happen, there were some discrepancies, to admit the truth, to be frank and say like a man:


"Well, I have looked into my accounts. I find this wrong and this wrong. But, with God's grace, I will rectify this and this. I will set right my accounts."


Lily, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet. Hardly had she brought one gentleman into the little pantry behind the office on the ground floor and helped him off with his overcoat than the wheezy hall-door bell clanged again and she had to scamper along the bare hallway to let in another guest. It was well for her she had not to attend to the ladies also. But Miss Kate and Miss Julia had thought of that and had converted the bathroom upstairs into a ladies' dressing-room. Miss Kate and Miss Julia were there, gossiping and laughing and fussing, walking after each other to the head of the stairs, peering down over the banisters and calling down to Lily to ask her who had come.


It was always a great affair, the Misses Morkan's annual dance. Everybody who knew them came to it, members of the family, old friends of the family, the members of Julia's choir, any of Kate's pupils that were grown up enough, and even some of Mary Jane's pupils too. Never once had it fallen flat. For years and years it had gone off in splendid style as long as anyone could remember; ever since Kate and Julia, after the death of their brother Pat, had left the house in Stoney Batter and taken Mary Jane, their only niece, to live with them in the dark gaunt house on Usher's Island, the upper part of which they had rented from Mr Fulham, the corn-factor on the ground floor. That was a good thirty years ago if it was a day. Mary Jane, who was then a little girl in short clothes, was now the main prop of the household, for she had the organ in Haddington Road. She had been through the Academy and gave a pupils' concert every year in the upper room of the Antient Concert Rooms. Many of her pupils belonged to the better-class families on the Kingstown and Dalkey line. Old as they were, her aunts also did their share. Julia, though she was quite grey, was still the leading soprano in Adam and Eve's, and Kate, being too feeble to go about much, gave music lessons to beginners on the old square piano in the back room. Lily, the caretaker's daughter, did housemaid's work for them. Though their life was modest they believed in eating well; the best of everything: diamond-bone sirloins, three-shilling tea and the best bottled stout. But Lily seldom made a mistake in the orders so that she got on well with her three mistresses. They were fussy, that was all. But the only thing they would not stand was back answers.


Of course they had good reason to be fussy on such a night. And then it was long after ten o'clock and yet there was no sign of Gabriel and his wife. Besides they were dreadfully afraid that Freddy Malins might turn up screwed. They would not wish for worlds that any of Mary Jane's pupils should see him under the influence; and when he was like that it was sometimes very hard to manage him. Freddy Malins always came late but they wondered what could be keeping Gabriel: and that was what brought them every two minutes to the banisters to ask Lily had Gabriel or Freddy come.


"O, Mr Conroy," said Lily to Gabriel when she opened the door for him, "Miss Kate and Miss Julia thought you were never coming. Good-night, Mrs Conroy."


"I'll engage they did," said Gabriel, "but they forget that my wife here takes three mortal hours to dress herself."


He stood on the mat, scraping the snow from his goloshes, while Lily led his wife to the foot of the stairs and called out:


"Miss Kate, here's Mrs Conroy."


Kate and Julia came toddling down the dark stairs at once. Both of them kissed Gabriel's wife, said she must be perished alive and asked was Gabriel with her.


"Here I am as right as the mail, Aunt Kate! Go on up. I'll follow," called out Gabriel from the dark.


He continued scraping his feet vigorously while the three women went upstairs, laughing, to the ladies' dressing-room. A light fringe of snow lay like a cape on the shoulders of his overcoat and like toecaps on the toes of his goloshes; and, as the buttons of his overcoat slipped with a squeaking noise through the snow-stiffened frieze, a cold, fragrant air from out-of-doors escaped from crevices and folds.


"Is it snowing again, Mr Conroy?" asked Lily.


She had preceded him into the pantry to help him off with his overcoat. Gabriel smiled at the three syllables she had given his surname and glanced at her. She was a slim, growing girl, pale in complexion and with hay-coloured hair. The gas in the pantry made her look still paler. Gabriel had known her when she was a child and used to sit on the lowest step nursing a rag doll.


"Yes, Lily," he answered, "and I think we're in for a night of it."


He looked up at the pantry ceiling, which was shaking with the stamping and shuffling of feet on the floor above, listened for a moment to the piano and then glanced at the girl, who was folding his overcoat carefully at the end of a shelf.


"Tell me, Lily," he said in a friendly tone, "do you still go to school?"


"O no, sir," she answered. "I'm done schooling this year and more."


"O, then," said Gabriel gaily, "I suppose we'll be going to your wedding one of these fine days with your young man, eh?"


The girl glanced back at him over her shoulder and said with great bitterness:


"The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you."


Gabriel coloured as if he felt he had made a mistake and, without looking at her, kicked off his goloshes and flicked actively with his muffler at his patent-leather shoes.


He was a stout tallish young man. The high colour of his cheeks pushed upwards even to his forehead where it scattered itself in a few formless patches of pale red; and on his hairless face there scintillated restlessly the polished lenses and the bright gilt rims of the glasses which screened his delicate and restless eyes. His glossy black hair was parted in the middle and brushed in a long curve behind his ears where it curled slightly beneath the groove left by his hat.


When he had flicked lustre into his shoes he stood up and pulled his waistcoat down more tightly on his plump body. Then he took a coin rapidly from his pocket.


"O Lily," he said, thrusting it into her hands, "it's Christmas-time, isn't it? Just ... here's a little...."


He walked rapidly towards the door.


"O no, sir!" cried the girl, following him. "Really, sir, I wouldn't take it."


"Christmas-time! Christmas-time!" said Gabriel, almost trotting to the stairs and waving his hand to her in deprecation.


The girl, seeing that he had gained the stairs, called out after him:


"Well, thank you, sir."


He waited outside the drawing-room door until the waltz should finish, listening to the skirts that swept against it and to the shuffling of feet. He was still discomposed by the girl's bitter and sudden retort. It had cast a gloom over him which he tried to dispel by arranging his cuffs and the bows of his tie. He then took from his waistcoat pocket a little paper and glanced at the headings he had made for his speech. He was undecided about the lines from Robert Browning for he feared they would be above the heads of his hearers. Some quotation that they would recognise from Shakespeare or from the Melodies would be better. The indelicate clacking of the men's heels and the shuffling of their soles reminded him that their grade of culture differed from his. He would only make himself ridiculous by quoting poetry to them which they could not understand. They would think that he was airing his superior education. He would fail with them just as he had failed with the girl in the pantry. He had taken up a wrong tone. His whole speech was a mistake from first to last, an utter failure.


Just then his aunts and his wife came out of the ladies' dressing-room. His aunts were two small plainly dressed old women. Aunt Julia was an inch or so the taller. Her hair, drawn low over the tops of her ears, was grey; and grey also, with darker shadows, was her large flaccid face. Though she was stout in build and stood erect her slow eyes and parted lips gave her the appearance of a woman who did not know where she was or where she was going. Aunt Kate was more vivacious. Her face, healthier than her sister's, was all puckers and creases, like a shrivelled red apple, and her hair, braided in the same old-fashioned way, had not lost its ripe nut colour.


They both kissed Gabriel frankly. He was their favourite nephew, the son of their dead elder sister, Ellen, who had married T. J. Conroy of the Port and Docks.


"Gretta tells me you're not going to take a cab back to Monkstown tonight, Gabriel," said Aunt Kate.


"No," said Gabriel, turning to his wife, "we had quite enough of that last year, hadn't we? Don't you remember, Aunt Kate, what a cold Gretta got out of it? Cab windows rattling all the way, and the east wind blowing in after we passed Merrion. Very jolly it was. Gretta caught a dreadful cold."


Aunt Kate frowned severely and nodded her head at every word.


"Quite right, Gabriel, quite right," she said. "You can't be too careful."


"But as for Gretta there," said Gabriel, "she'd walk home in the snow if she were let."


Mrs Conroy laughed.


"Don't mind him, Aunt Kate," she said. "He's really an awful bother, what with green shades for Tom's eyes at night and making him do the dumb-bells, and forcing Eva to eat the stirabout. The poor child! And she simply hates the sight of it!... O, but you'll never guess what he makes me wear now!"


She broke out into a peal of laughter and glanced at her husband, whose admiring and happy eyes had been wandering from her dress to her face and hair. The two aunts laughed heartily too, for Gabriel's solicitude was a standing joke with them.


"Goloshes!" said Mrs Conroy. "That's the latest. Whenever it's wet underfoot I must put on my goloshes. Tonight even he wanted me to put them on, but I wouldn't. The next thing he'll buy me will be a diving suit."


Gabriel laughed nervously and patted his tie reassuringly while Aunt Kate nearly doubled herself, so heartily did she enjoy the joke. The smile soon faded from Aunt Julia's face and her mirthless eyes were directed towards her nephew's face. After a pause she asked:


"And what are goloshes, Gabriel?"


"Goloshes, Julia!" exclaimed her sister. "Goodness me, don't you know what goloshes are? You wear them over your ... over your boots, Gretta, isn't it?"


"Yes," said Mrs Conroy. "Guttapercha things. We both have a pair now. Gabriel says everyone wears them on the continent."


"O, on the continent," murmured Aunt Julia, nodding her head slowly.


Gabriel knitted his brows and said, as if he were slightly angered:


"It's nothing very wonderful but Gretta thinks it very funny because she says the word reminds her of Christy Minstrels."


"But tell me, Gabriel," said Aunt Kate, with brisk tact. "Of course, you've seen about the room. Gretta was saying...."


"O, the room is all right," replied Gabriel. "I've taken one in the Gresham."


"To be sure," said Aunt Kate, "by far the best thing to do. And the children, Gretta, you're not anxious about them?"


"O, for one night," said Mrs Conroy. "Besides, Bessie will look after them."


"To be sure," said Aunt Kate again. "What a comfort it is to have a girl like that, one you can depend on! There's that Lily, I'm sure I don't know what has come over her lately. She's not the girl she was at all."


Gabriel was about to ask his aunt some questions on this point but she broke off suddenly to gaze after her sister who had wandered down the stairs and was craning her neck over the banisters.


"Now, I ask you," she said almost testily, "where is Julia going? Julia! Julia! Where are you going?"


Julia, who had gone half way down one flight, came back and announced blandly:


At the same moment a clapping of hands and a final flourish of the pianist told that the waltz had ended. The drawing-room door was opened from within and some couples came out. Aunt Kate drew Gabriel aside hurriedly and whispered into his ear:


"Slip down, Gabriel, like a good fellow and see if he's all right, and don't let him up if he's screwed. I'm sure he's screwed. I'm sure he is."


Gabriel went to the stairs and listened over the banisters. He could hear two persons talking in the pantry. Then he recognised Freddy Malins' laugh. He went down the stairs noisily.


"It's such a relief," said Aunt Kate to Mrs Conroy, "that Gabriel is here. I always feel easier in my mind when he's here.... Julia, there's Miss Daly and Miss Power will take some refreshment. Thanks for your beautiful waltz, Miss Daly. It made lovely time."


A tall wizen-faced man, with a stiff grizzled moustache and swarthy skin, who was passing out with his partner said:


"And may we have some refreshment, too, Miss Morkan?"


"Julia," said Aunt Kate summarily, "and here's Mr Browne and Miss Furlong. Take them in, Julia, with Miss Daly and Miss Power."


"I'm the man for the ladies," said Mr Browne, pursing his lips until his moustache bristled and smiling in all his wrinkles. "You know, Miss Morkan, the reason they are so fond of me is——"


He did not finish his sentence, but, seeing that Aunt Kate was out of earshot, at once led the three young ladies into the back room. The middle of the room was occupied by two square tables placed end to end, and on these Aunt Julia and the caretaker were straightening and smoothing a large cloth. On the sideboard were arrayed dishes and plates, and glasses and bundles of knives and forks and spoons. The top of the closed square piano served also as a sideboard for viands and sweets. At a smaller sideboard in one corner two young men were standing, drinking hop-bitters.


Mr Browne led his charges thither and invited them all, in jest, to some ladies' punch, hot, strong and sweet. As they said they never took anything strong he opened three bottles of lemonade for them. Then he asked one of the young men to move aside, and, taking hold of the decanter, filled out for himself a goodly measure of whisky. The young men eyed him respectfully while he took a trial sip.


"God help me," he said, smiling, "it's the doctor's orders."


His wizened face broke into a broader smile, and the three young ladies laughed in musical echo to his pleasantry, swaying their bodies to and fro, with nervous jerks of their shoulders. The boldest said:


"O, now, Mr Browne, I'm sure the doctor never ordered anything of the kind."


Mr Browne took another sip of his whisky and said, with sidling mimicry:


"Well, you see, I'm like the famous Mrs Cassidy, who is reported to have said: 'Now, Mary Grimes, if I don't take it, make me take it, for I feel I want it.'"


His hot face had leaned forward a little too confidentially and he had assumed a very low Dublin accent so that the young ladies, with one instinct, received his speech in silence. Miss Furlong, who was one of Mary Jane's pupils, asked Miss Daly what was the name of the pretty waltz she had played; and Mr Browne, seeing that he was ignored, turned promptly to the two young men who were more appreciative.


A red-faced young woman, dressed in pansy, came into the room, excitedly clapping her hands and crying:


Close on her heels came Aunt Kate, crying:


"Two gentlemen and three ladies, Mary Jane!"


"O, here's Mr Bergin and Mr Kerrigan," said Mary Jane. "Mr Kerrigan, will you take Miss Power? Miss Furlong, may I get you a partner, Mr Bergin. O, that'll just do now."


"Three ladies, Mary Jane," said Aunt Kate.


The two young gentlemen asked the ladies if they might have the pleasure, and Mary Jane turned to Miss Daly.


"O, Miss Daly, you're really awfully good, after playing for the last two dances, but really we're so short of ladies tonight."


"I don't mind in the least, Miss Morkan."


"But I've a nice partner for you, Mr Bartell D'Arcy, the tenor. I'll get him to sing later on. All Dublin is raving about him."


"Lovely voice, lovely voice!" said Aunt Kate.


As the piano had twice begun the prelude to the first figure Mary Jane led her recruits quickly from the room. They had hardly gone when Aunt Julia wandered slowly into the room, looking behind her at something.


"What is the matter, Julia?" asked Aunt Kate anxiously. "Who is it?"


Julia, who was carrying in a column of table-napkins, turned to her sister and said, simply, as if the question had surprised her:


"It's only Freddy, Kate, and Gabriel with him."


In fact right behind her Gabriel could be seen piloting Freddy Malins across the landing. The latter, a young man of about forty, was of Gabriel's size and build, with very round shoulders. His face was fleshy and pallid, touched with colour only at the thick hanging lobes of his ears and at the wide wings of his nose. He had coarse features, a blunt nose, a convex and receding brow, tumid and protruded lips. His heavy-lidded eyes and the disorder of his scanty hair made him look sleepy. He was laughing heartily in a high key at a story which he had been telling Gabriel on the stairs and at the same time rubbing the knuckles of his left fist backwards and forwards into his left eye.


"Good-evening, Freddy," said Aunt Julia.


Freddy Malins bade the Misses Morkan good-evening in what seemed an offhand fashion by reason of the habitual catch in his voice and then, seeing that Mr Browne was grinning at him from the sideboard, crossed the room on rather shaky legs and began to repeat in an undertone the story he had just told to Gabriel.


"He's not so bad, is he?" said Aunt Kate to Gabriel.


Gabriel's brows were dark but he raised them quickly and answered:


"O, no, hardly noticeable."


"Now, isn't he a terrible fellow!" she said. "And his poor mother made him take the pledge on New Year's Eve. But come on, Gabriel, into the drawing-room."


Before leaving the room with Gabriel she signalled to Mr Browne by frowning and shaking her forefinger in warning to and fro. Mr Browne nodded in answer and, when she had gone, said to Freddy Malins:


"Now, then, Teddy, I'm going to fill you out a good glass of lemonade just to buck you up."


Freddy Malins, who was nearing the climax of his story, waved the offer aside impatiently but Mr Browne, having first called Freddy Malins' attention to a disarray in his dress, filled out and handed him a full glass of lemonade. Freddy Malins' left hand accepted the glass mechanically, his right hand being engaged in the mechanical readjustment of his dress. Mr Browne, whose face was once more wrinkling with mirth, poured out for himself a glass of whisky while Freddy Malins exploded, before he had well reached the climax of his story, in a kink of high-pitched bronchitic laughter and, setting down his untasted and overflowing glass, began to rub the knuckles of his left fist backwards and forwards into his left eye, repeating words of his last phrase as well as his fit of laughter would allow him.


Gabriel could not listen while Mary Jane was playing her Academy piece, full of runs and difficult passages, to the hushed drawing-room. He liked music but the piece she was playing had no melody for him and he doubted whether it had any melody for the other listeners, though they had begged Mary Jane to play something. Four young men, who had come from the refreshment-room to stand in the doorway at the sound of the piano, had gone away quietly in couples after a few minutes. The only persons who seemed to follow the music were Mary Jane herself, her hands racing along the keyboard or lifted from it at the pauses like those of a priestess in momentary imprecation, and Aunt Kate standing at her elbow to turn the page.


Gabriel's eyes, irritated by the floor, which glittered with beeswax under the heavy chandelier, wandered to the wall above the piano. A picture of the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet hung there and beside it was a picture of the two murdered princes in the Tower which Aunt Julia had worked in red, blue and brown wools when she was a girl. Probably in the school they had gone to as girls that kind of work had been taught for one year. His mother had worked for him as a birthday present a waistcoat of purple tabinet, with little foxes' heads upon it, lined with brown satin and having round mulberry buttons. It was strange that his mother had had no musical talent though Aunt Kate used to call her the brains carrier of the Morkan family. Both she and Julia had always seemed a little proud of their serious and matronly sister. Her photograph stood before the pierglass. She held an open book on her knees and was pointing out something in it to Constantine who, dressed in a man-o'-war suit, lay at her feet. It was she who had chosen the name of her sons for she was very sensible of the dignity of family life. Thanks to her, Constantine was now senior curate in Balbrigan and, thanks to her, Gabriel himself had taken his degree in the Royal University. A shadow passed over his face as he remembered her sullen opposition to his marriage. Some slighting phrases she had used still rankled in his memory; she had once spoken of Gretta as being country cute and that was not true of Gretta at all. It was Gretta who had nursed her during all her last long illness in their house at Monkstown.


He knew that Mary Jane must be near the end of her piece for she was playing again the opening melody with runs of scales after every bar and while he waited for the end the resentment died down in his heart. The piece ended with a trill of octaves in the treble and a final deep octave in the bass. Great applause greeted Mary Jane as, blushing and rolling up her music nervously, she escaped from the room. The most vigorous clapping came from the four young men in the doorway who had gone away to the refreshment-room at the beginning of the piece but had come back when the piano had stopped.


Lancers were arranged. Gabriel found himself partnered with Miss Ivors. She was a frank-mannered talkative young lady, with a freckled face and prominent brown eyes. She did not wear a low-cut bodice and the large brooch which was fixed in the front of her collar bore on it an Irish device and motto.


When they had taken their places she said abruptly:


"I have a crow to pluck with you."


She nodded her head gravely.


"What is it?" asked Gabriel, smiling at her solemn manner.


"Who is G. C.?" answered Miss Ivors, turning her eyes upon him.


Gabriel coloured and was about to knit his brows, as if he did not understand, when she said bluntly:


"O, innocent Amy! I have found out that you write for The Daily Express. Now, aren't you ashamed of yourself?"


"Why should I be ashamed of myself?" asked Gabriel, blinking his eyes and trying to smile.


"Well, I'm ashamed of you," said Miss Ivors frankly. "To say you'd write for a paper like that. I didn't think you were a West Briton."


A look of perplexity appeared on Gabriel's face. It was true that he wrote a literary column every Wednesday in The Daily Express, for which he was paid fifteen shillings. But that did not make him a West Briton surely. The books he received for review were almost more welcome than the paltry cheque. He loved to feel the covers and turn over the pages of newly printed books. Nearly every day when his teaching in the college was ended he used to wander down the quays to the second-hand booksellers, to Hickey's on Bachelor's Walk, to Webb's or Massey's on Aston's Quay, or to O'Clohissey's in the by-street. He did not know how to meet her charge. He wanted to say that literature was above politics. But they were friends of many years' standing and their careers had been parallel, first at the university and then as teachers: he could not risk a grandiose phrase with her. He continued blinking his eyes and trying to smile and murmured lamely that he saw nothing political in writing reviews of books.


When their turn to cross had come he was still perplexed and inattentive. Miss Ivors promptly took his hand in a warm grasp and said in a soft friendly tone:


"Of course, I was only joking. Come, we cross now."


When they were together again she spoke of the University question and Gabriel felt more at ease. A friend of hers had shown her his review of Browning's poems. That was how she had found out the secret: but she liked the review immensely. Then she said suddenly:


"O, Mr Conroy, will you come for an excursion to the Aran Isles this summer? We're going to stay there a whole month. It will be splendid out in the Atlantic. You ought to come. Mr Clancy is coming, and Mr Kilkelly and Kathleen Kearney. It would be splendid for Gretta too if she'd come. She's from Connacht, isn't she?"


"Her people are," said Gabriel shortly.


"But you will come, won't you?" said Miss Ivors, laying her warm hand eagerly on his arm.


"The fact is," said Gabriel, "I have just arranged to go——"


"Go where?" asked Miss Ivors.


"Well, you know, every year I go for a cycling tour with some fellows and so——"


"But where?" asked Miss Ivors.


"Well, we usually go to France or Belgium or perhaps Germany," said Gabriel awkwardly.


"And why do you go to France and Belgium," said Miss Ivors, "instead of visiting your own land?"


"Well," said Gabriel, "it's partly to keep in touch with the languages and partly for a change."


"And haven't you your own language to keep in touch with—Irish?" asked Miss Ivors.


"Well," said Gabriel, "if it comes to that, you know, Irish is not my language."


Their neighbours had turned to listen to the cross-examination. Gabriel glanced right and left nervously and tried to keep his good humour under the ordeal which was making a blush invade his forehead.


"And haven't you your own land to visit," continued Miss Ivors, "that you know nothing of, your own people, and your own country?"


"O, to tell you the truth," retorted Gabriel suddenly, "I'm sick of my own country, sick of it!"


"Why?" asked Miss Ivors.


Gabriel did not answer for his retort had heated him.


"Why?" repeated Miss Ivors.


They had to go visiting together and, as he had not answered her, Miss Ivors said warmly:


"Of course, you've no answer."


Gabriel tried to cover his agitation by taking part in the dance with great energy. He avoided her eyes for he had seen a sour expression on her face. But when they met in the long chain he was surprised to feel his hand firmly pressed. She looked at him from under her brows for a moment quizzically until he smiled. Then, just as the chain was about to start again, she stood on tiptoe and whispered into his ear:


"West Briton!"


When the lancers were over Gabriel went away to a remote corner of the room where Freddy Malins' mother was sitting. She was a stout feeble old woman with white hair. Her voice had a catch in it like her son's and she stuttered slightly. She had been told that Freddy had come and that he was nearly all right. Gabriel asked her whether she had had a good crossing. She lived with her married daughter in Glasgow and came to Dublin on a visit once a year. She answered placidly that she had had a beautiful crossing and that the captain had been most attentive to her. She spoke also of the beautiful house her daughter kept in Glasgow, and of all the friends they had there. While her tongue rambled on Gabriel tried to banish from his mind all memory of the unpleasant incident with Miss Ivors. Of course the girl or woman, or whatever she was, was an enthusiast but there was a time for all things. Perhaps he ought not to have answered her like that. But she had no right to call him a West Briton before people, even in joke. She had tried to make him ridiculous before people, heckling him and staring at him with her rabbit's eyes.


He saw his wife making her way towards him through the waltzing couples. When she reached him she said into his ear:


"Gabriel, Aunt Kate wants to know won't you carve the goose as usual. Miss Daly will carve the ham and I'll do the pudding."


"She's sending in the younger ones first as soon as this waltz is over so that we'll have the table to ourselves."


"Were you dancing?" asked Gabriel.


"Of course I was. Didn't you see me? What row had you with Molly Ivors?"


"No row. Why? Did she say so?"


"Something like that. I'm trying to get that Mr D'Arcy to sing. He's full of conceit, I think."


"There was no row," said Gabriel moodily, "only she wanted me to go for a trip to the west of Ireland and I said I wouldn't."


His wife clasped her hands excitedly and gave a little jump.


"O, do go, Gabriel," she cried. "I'd love to see Galway again."


She looked at him for a moment, then turned to Mrs Malins and said:


"There's a nice husband for you, Mrs Malins."


While she was threading her way back across the room Mrs Malins, without adverting to the interruption, went on to tell Gabriel what beautiful places there were in Scotland and beautiful scenery. Her son-in-law brought them every year to the lakes and they used to go fishing. Her son-in-law was a splendid fisher. One day he caught a beautiful big fish and the man in the hotel cooked it for their dinner.


Gabriel hardly heard what she said. Now that supper was coming near he began to think again about his speech and about the quotation. When he saw Freddy Malins coming across the room to visit his mother Gabriel left the chair free for him and retired into the embrasure of the window. The room had already cleared and from the back room came the clatter of plates and knives. Those who still remained in the drawing-room seemed tired of dancing and were conversing quietly in little groups. Gabriel's warm trembling fingers tapped the cold pane of the window. How cool it must be outside! How pleasant it would be to walk out alone, first along by the river and then through the park! The snow would be lying on the branches of the trees and forming a bright cap on the top of the Wellington Monument. How much more pleasant it would be there than at the supper-table!


He ran over the headings of his speech: Irish hospitality, sad memories, the Three Graces, Paris, the quotation from Browning. He repeated to himself a phrase he had written in his review: "One feels that one is listening to a thought-tormented music." Miss Ivors had praised the review. Was she sincere? Had she really any life of her own behind all her propagandism? There had never been any ill-feeling between them until that night. It unnerved him to think that she would be at the supper-table, looking up at him while he spoke with her critical quizzing eyes. Perhaps she would not be sorry to see him fail in his speech. An idea came into his mind and gave him courage. He would say, alluding to Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia: "Ladies and Gentlemen, the generation which is now on the wane among us may have had its faults but for my part I think it had certain qualities of hospitality, of humour, of humanity, which the new and very serious and hypereducated generation that is growing up around us seems to me to lack." Very good: that was one for Miss Ivors. What did he care that his aunts were only two ignorant old women?


A murmur in the room attracted his attention. Mr Browne was advancing from the door, gallantly escorting Aunt Julia, who leaned upon his arm, smiling and hanging her head. An irregular musketry of applause escorted her also as far as the piano and then, as Mary Jane seated herself on the stool, and Aunt Julia, no longer smiling, half turned so as to pitch her voice fairly into the room, gradually ceased. Gabriel recognised the prelude. It was that of an old song of Aunt Julia's—Arrayed for the Bridal. Her voice, strong and clear in tone, attacked with great spirit the runs which embellish the air and though she sang very rapidly she did not miss even the smallest of the grace notes. To follow the voice, without looking at the singer's face, was to feel and share the excitement of swift and secure flight. Gabriel applauded loudly with all the others at the close of the song and loud applause was borne in from the invisible supper-table. It sounded so genuine that a little colour struggled into Aunt Julia's face as she bent to replace in the music-stand the old leather-bound songbook that had her initials on the cover. Freddy Malins, who had listened with his head perched sideways to hear her better, was still applauding when everyone else had ceased and talking animatedly to his mother who nodded her head gravely and slowly in acquiescence. At last, when he could clap no more, he stood up suddenly and hurried across the room to Aunt Julia whose hand he seized and held in both his hands, shaking it when words failed him or the catch in his voice proved too much for him.


"I was just telling my mother," he said, "I never heard you sing so well, never. No, I never heard your voice so good as it is tonight. Now! Would you believe that now? That's the truth. Upon my word and honour that's the truth. I never heard your voice sound so fresh and so ... so clear and fresh, never."


Aunt Julia smiled broadly and murmured something about compliments as she released her hand from his grasp. Mr Browne extended his open hand towards her and said to those who were near him in the manner of a showman introducing a prodigy to an audience:


"Miss Julia Morkan, my latest discovery!"


He was laughing very heartily at this himself when Freddy Malins turned to him and said:


"Well, Browne, if you're serious you might make a worse discovery. All I can say is I never heard her sing half so well as long as I am coming here. And that's the honest truth."


"Neither did I," said Mr Browne. "I think her voice has greatly improved."


Aunt Julia shrugged her shoulders and said with meek pride:


"Thirty years ago I hadn't a bad voice as voices go."


"I often told Julia," said Aunt Kate emphatically, "that she was simply thrown away in that choir. But she never would be said by me."


She turned as if to appeal to the good sense of the others against a refractory child while Aunt Julia gazed in front of her, a vague smile of reminiscence playing on her face.


"No," continued Aunt Kate, "she wouldn't be said or led by anyone, slaving there in that choir night and day, night and day. Six o'clock on Christmas morning! And all for what?"


"Well, isn't it for the honour of God, Aunt Kate?" asked Mary Jane, twisting round on the piano-stool and smiling.


Aunt Kate turned fiercely on her niece and said:


"I know all about the honour of God, Mary Jane, but I think it's not at all honourable for the pope to turn out the women out of the choirs that have slaved there all their lives and put little whipper-snappers of boys over their heads. I suppose it is for the good of the Church if the pope does it. But it's not just, Mary Jane, and it's not right."


She had worked herself into a passion and would have continued in defence of her sister for it was a sore subject with her but Mary Jane, seeing that all the dancers had come back, intervened pacifically:


"Now, Aunt Kate, you're giving scandal to Mr Browne who is of the other persuasion."


Aunt Kate turned to Mr Browne, who was grinning at this allusion to his religion, and said hastily:


"O, I don't question the pope's being right. I'm only a stupid old woman and I wouldn't presume to do such a thing. But there's such a thing as common everyday politeness and gratitude. And if I were in Julia's place I'd tell that Father Healey straight up to his face...."


"And besides, Aunt Kate," said Mary Jane, "we really are all hungry and when we are hungry we are all very quarrelsome."


"And when we are thirsty we are also quarrelsome," added Mr Browne.


"So that we had better go to supper," said Mary Jane, "and finish the discussion afterwards."


On the landing outside the drawing-room Gabriel found his wife and Mary Jane trying to persuade Miss Ivors to stay for supper. But Miss Ivors, who had put on her hat and was buttoning her cloak, would not stay. She did not feel in the least hungry and she had already overstayed her time.


"But only for ten minutes, Molly," said Mrs Conroy. "That won't delay you."


"To take a pick itself," said Mary Jane, "after all your dancing."


"I really couldn't," said Miss Ivors.


"Ever so much, I assure you," said Miss Ivors, "but you really must let me run off now."


"But how can you get home?" asked Mrs Conroy.


"O, it's only two steps up the quay."


Gabriel hesitated a moment and said:


"If you will allow me, Miss Ivors, I'll see you home if you are really obliged to go."


But Miss Ivors broke away from them.


"I won't hear of it," she cried. "For goodness' sake go in to your suppers and don't mind me. I'm quite well able to take care of myself."


"Well, you're the comical girl, Molly," said Mrs Conroy frankly.


"Beannacht libh," cried Miss Ivors, with a laugh, as she ran down the staircase.


Mary Jane gazed after her, a moody puzzled expression on her face, while Mrs Conroy leaned over the banisters to listen for the hall-door. Gabriel asked himself was he the cause of her abrupt departure. But she did not seem to be in ill humour: she had gone away laughing. He stared blankly down the staircase.


At the moment Aunt Kate came toddling out of the supper-room, almost wringing her hands in despair.


"Where is Gabriel?" she cried. "Where on earth is Gabriel? There's everyone waiting in there, stage to let, and nobody to carve the goose!"


"Here I am, Aunt Kate!" cried Gabriel, with sudden animation, "ready to carve a flock of geese, if necessary."


A fat brown goose lay at one end of the table and at the other end, on a bed of creased paper strewn with sprigs of parsley, lay a great ham, stripped of its outer skin and peppered over with crust crumbs, a neat paper frill round its shin and beside this was a round of spiced beef. Between these rival ends ran parallel lines of side-dishes: two little minsters of jelly, red and yellow; a shallow dish full of blocks of blancmange and red jam, a large green leaf-shaped dish with a stalk-shaped handle, on which lay bunches of purple raisins and peeled almonds, a companion dish on which lay a solid rectangle of Smyrna figs, a dish of custard topped with grated nutmeg, a small bowl full of chocolates and sweets wrapped in gold and silver papers and a glass vase in which stood some tall celery stalks. In the centre of the table there stood, as sentries to a fruit-stand which upheld a pyramid of oranges and American apples, two squat old-fashioned decanters of cut glass, one containing port and the other dark sherry. On the closed square piano a pudding in a huge yellow dish lay in waiting and behind it were three squads of bottles of stout and ale and minerals, drawn up according to the colours of their uniforms, the first two black, with brown and red labels, the third and smallest squad white, with transverse green sashes.


Gabriel took his seat boldly at the head of the table and, having looked to the edge of the carver, plunged his fork firmly into the goose. He felt quite at ease now for he was an expert carver and liked nothing better than to find himself at the head of a well-laden table.


"Miss Furlong, what shall I send you?" he asked. "A wing or a slice of the breast?"


"Just a small slice of the breast."


"Miss Higgins, what for you?"


"O, anything at all, Mr Conroy."


While Gabriel and Miss Daly exchanged plates of goose and plates of ham and spiced beef Lily went from guest to guest with a dish of hot floury potatoes wrapped in a white napkin. This was Mary Jane's idea and she had also suggested apple sauce for the goose but Aunt Kate had said that plain roast goose without any apple sauce had always been good enough for her and she hoped she might never eat worse. Mary Jane waited on her pupils and saw that they got the best slices and Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia opened and carried across from the piano bottles of stout and ale for the gentlemen and bottles of minerals for the ladies. There was a great deal of confusion and laughter and noise, the noise of orders and counter-orders, of knives and forks, of corks and glass-stoppers. Gabriel began to carve second helpings as soon as he had finished the first round without serving himself. Everyone protested loudly so that he compromised by taking a long draught of stout for he had found the carving hot work. Mary Jane settled down quietly to her supper but Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia were still toddling round the table, walking on each other's heels, getting in each other's way and giving each other unheeded orders. Mr Browne begged of them to sit down and eat their suppers and so did Gabriel but they said they were time enough so that, at last, Freddy Malins stood up and, capturing Aunt Kate, plumped her down on her chair amid general laughter.


When everyone had been well served Gabriel said, smiling:


"Now, if anyone wants a little more of what vulgar people call stuffing let him or her speak."


A chorus of voices invited him to begin his own supper and Lily came forward with three potatoes which she had reserved for him.


"Very well," said Gabriel amiably, as he took another preparatory draught, "kindly forget my existence, ladies and gentlemen, for a few minutes."


He set to his supper and took no part in the conversation with which the table covered Lily's removal of the plates. The subject of talk was the opera company which was then at the Theatre Royal. Mr Bartell D'Arcy, the tenor, a dark-complexioned young man with a smart moustache, praised very highly the leading contralto of the company but Miss Furlong thought she had a rather vulgar style of production. Freddy Malins said there was a negro chieftain singing in the second part of the Gaiety pantomime who had one of the finest tenor voices he had ever heard.


"Have you heard him?" he asked Mr Bartell D'Arcy across the table.


"No," answered Mr Bartell D'Arcy carelessly.


"Because," Freddy Malins explained, "now I'd be curious to hear your opinion of him. I think he has a grand voice."


"It takes Teddy to find out the really good things," said Mr Browne familiarly to the table.


"And why couldn't he have a voice too?" asked Freddy Malins sharply. "Is it because he's only a black?"


Nobody answered this question and Mary Jane led the table back to the legitimate opera. One of her pupils had given her a pass for Mignon. Of course it was very fine, she said, but it made her think of poor Georgina Burns. Mr Browne could go back farther still, to the old Italian companies that used to come to Dublin—Tietjens, Ilma de Murzka, Campanini, the great Trebelli, Giuglini, Ravelli, Aramburo. Those were the days, he said, when there was something like singing to be heard in Dublin. He told too of how the top gallery of the old Royal used to be packed night after night, of how one night an Italian tenor had sung five encores to Let me like a Soldier fall, introducing a high C every time, and of how the gallery boys would sometimes in their enthusiasm unyoke the horses from the carriage of some great prima donna and pull her themselves through the streets to her hotel. Why did they never play the grand old operas now, he asked, Dinorah, Lucrezia Borgia? Because they could not get the voices to sing them: that was why.


"Oh, well," said Mr Bartell D'Arcy, "I presume there are as good singers today as there were then."


"Where are they?" asked Mr Browne defiantly.


"In London, Paris, Milan," said Mr Bartell D'Arcy warmly. "I suppose Caruso, for example, is quite as good, if not better than any of the men you have mentioned."


"Maybe so," said Mr Browne. "But I may tell you I doubt it strongly."


"O, I'd give anything to hear Caruso sing," said Mary Jane.


"For me," said Aunt Kate, who had been picking a bone, "there was only one tenor. To please me, I mean. But I suppose none of you ever heard of him."


"Who was he, Miss Morkan?" asked Mr Bartell D'Arcy politely.


"His name," said Aunt Kate, "was Parkinson. I heard him when he was in his prime and I think he had then the purest tenor voice that was ever put into a man's throat."


"Strange," said Mr Bartell D'Arcy. "I never even heard of him."


"Yes, yes, Miss Morkan is right," said Mr Browne. "I remember hearing of old Parkinson but he's too far back for me."


"A beautiful pure sweet mellow English tenor," said Aunt Kate with enthusiasm.


Gabriel having finished, the huge pudding was transferred to the table. The clatter of forks and spoons began again. Gabriel's wife served out spoonfuls of the pudding and passed the plates down the table. Midway down they were held up by Mary Jane, who replenished them with raspberry or orange jelly or with blancmange and jam. The pudding was of Aunt Julia's making and she received praises for it from all quarters. She herself said that it was not quite brown enough.


"Well, I hope, Miss Morkan," said Mr Browne, "that I'm brown enough for you because, you know, I'm all brown."


All the gentlemen, except Gabriel, ate some of the pudding out of compliment to Aunt Julia. As Gabriel never ate sweets the celery had been left for him. Freddy Malins also took a stalk of celery and ate it with his pudding. He had been told that celery was a capital thing for the blood and he was just then under doctor's care. Mrs Malins, who had been silent all through the supper, said that her son was going down to Mount Melleray in a week or so. The table then spoke of Mount Melleray, how bracing the air was down there, how hospitable the monks were and how they never asked for a penny-piece from their guests.


"And do you mean to say," asked Mr Browne incredulously, "that a chap can go down there and put up there as if it were a hotel and live on the fat of the land and then come away without paying anything?"


"O, most people give some donation to the monastery when they leave." said Mary Jane.


"I wish we had an institution like that in our Church," said Mr Browne candidly.


He was astonished to hear that the monks never spoke, got up at two in the morning and slept in their coffins. He asked what they did it for.


"That's the rule of the order," said Aunt Kate firmly.


"Yes, but why?" asked Mr Browne.


Aunt Kate repeated that it was the rule, that was all. Mr Browne still seemed not to understand. Freddy Malins explained to him, as best he could, that the monks were trying to make up for the sins committed by all the sinners in the outside world. The explanation was not very clear for Mr Browne grinned and said:


"I like that idea very much but wouldn't a comfortable spring bed do them as well as a coffin?"


"The coffin," said Mary Jane, "is to remind them of their last end."


As the subject had grown lugubrious it was buried in a silence of the table during which Mrs Malins could be heard saying to her neighbour in an indistinct undertone:


"They are very good men, the monks, very pious men."


The raisins and almonds and figs and apples and oranges and chocolates and sweets were now passed about the table and Aunt Julia invited all the guests to have either port or sherry. At first Mr Bartell D'Arcy refused to take either but one of his neighbours nudged him and whispered something to him upon which he allowed his glass to be filled. Gradually as the last glasses were being filled the conversation ceased. A pause followed, broken only by the noise of the wine and by unsettlings of chairs. The Misses Morkan, all three, looked down at the tablecloth. Someone coughed once or twice and then a few gentlemen patted the table gently as a signal for silence. The silence came and Gabriel pushed back his chair.


The patting at once grew louder in encouragement and then ceased altogether. Gabriel leaned his ten trembling fingers on the tablecloth and smiled nervously at the company. Meeting a row of upturned faces he raised his eyes to the chandelier. The piano was playing a waltz tune and he could hear the skirts sweeping against the drawing-room door. People, perhaps, were standing in the snow on the quay outside, gazing up at the lighted windows and listening to the waltz music. The air was pure there. In the distance lay the park where the trees were weighted with snow. The Wellington Monument wore a gleaming cap of snow that flashed westward over the white field of Fifteen Acres.


"It has fallen to my lot this evening, as in years past, to perform a very pleasing task but a task for which I am afraid my poor powers as a speaker are all too inadequate."


"But, however that may be, I can only ask you tonight to take the will for the deed and to lend me your attention for a few moments while I endeavour to express to you in words what my feelings are on this occasion.


"Ladies and Gentlemen, it is not the first time that we have gathered together under this hospitable roof, around this hospitable board. It is not the first time that we have been the recipients—or perhaps, I had better say, the victims—of the hospitality of certain good ladies."


He made a circle in the air with his arm and paused. Everyone laughed or smiled at Aunt Kate and Aunt Julia and Mary Jane who all turned crimson with pleasure. Gabriel went on more boldly:


"I feel more strongly with every recurring year that our country has no tradition which does it so much honour and which it should guard so jealously as that of its hospitality. It is a tradition that is unique as far as my experience goes (and I have visited not a few places abroad) among the modern nations. Some would say, perhaps, that with us it is rather a failing than anything to be boasted of. But granted even that, it is, to my mind, a princely failing, and one that I trust will long be cultivated among us. Of one thing, at least, I am sure. As long as this one roof shelters the good ladies aforesaid—and I wish from my heart it may do so for many and many a long year to come—the tradition of genuine warm-hearted courteous Irish hospitality, which our forefathers have handed down to us and which we in turn must hand down to our descendants, is still alive among us."


A hearty murmur of assent ran round the table. It shot through Gabriel's mind that Miss Ivors was not there and that she had gone away discourteously: and he said with confidence in himself:


"A new generation is growing up in our midst, a generation actuated by new ideas and new principles. It is serious and enthusiastic for these new ideas and its enthusiasm, even when it is misdirected, is, I believe, in the main sincere. But we are living in a sceptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age: and sometimes I fear that this new generation, educated or hypereducated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humour which belonged to an older day. Listening tonight to the names of all those great singers of the past it seemed to me, I must confess, that we were living in a less spacious age. Those days might, without exaggeration, be called spacious days: and if they are gone beyond recall let us hope, at least, that in gatherings such as this we shall still speak of them with pride and affection, still cherish in our hearts the memory of those dead and gone great ones whose fame the world will not willingly let die."


"Hear, hear!" said Mr Browne loudly.


"But yet," continued Gabriel, his voice falling into a softer inflection, "there are always in gatherings such as this sadder thoughts that will recur to our minds: thoughts of the past, of youth, of changes, of absent faces that we miss here tonight. Our path through life is strewn with many such sad memories: and were we to brood upon them always we could not find the heart to go on bravely with our work among the living. We have all of us living duties and living affections which claim, and rightly claim, our strenuous endeavours.


"Therefore, I will not linger on the past. I will not let any gloomy moralising intrude upon us here tonight. Here we are gathered together for a brief moment from the bustle and rush of our everyday routine. We are met here as friends, in the spirit of good-fellowship, as colleagues, also to a certain extent, in the true spirit of camaraderie, and as the guests of—what shall I call them?—the Three Graces of the Dublin musical world."


The table burst into applause and laughter at this allusion. Aunt Julia vainly asked each of her neighbours in turn to tell her what Gabriel had said.


"He says we are the Three Graces, Aunt Julia," said Mary Jane.


Aunt Julia did not understand but she looked up, smiling, at Gabriel, who continued in the same vein:


"I will not attempt to play tonight the part that Paris played on another occasion. I will not attempt to choose between them. The task would be an invidious one and one beyond my poor powers. For when I view them in turn, whether it be our chief hostess herself, whose good heart, whose too good heart, has become a byword with all who know her, or her sister, who seems to be gifted with perennial youth and whose singing must have been a surprise and a revelation to us all tonight, or, last but not least, when I consider our youngest hostess, talented, cheerful, hard-working and the best of nieces, I confess, Ladies and Gentlemen, that I do not know to which of them I should award the prize."


Gabriel glanced down at his aunts and, seeing the large smile on Aunt Julia's face and the tears which had risen to Aunt Kate's eyes, hastened to his close. He raised his glass of port gallantly, while every member of the company fingered a glass expectantly, and said loudly:


"Let us toast them all three together. Let us drink to their health, wealth, long life, happiness and prosperity and may they long continue to hold the proud and self-won position which they hold in their profession and the position of honour and affection which they hold in our hearts."


All the guests stood up, glass in hand, and turning towards the three seated ladies, sang in unison, with Mr Browne as leader:


For they are jolly gay fellows, For they are jolly gay fellows, For they are jolly gay fellows, Which nobody can deny.


Aunt Kate was making frank use of her handkerchief and even Aunt Julia seemed moved. Freddy Malins beat time with his pudding-fork and the singers turned towards one another, as if in melodious conference, while they sang with emphasis:


Unless he tells a lie, Unless he tells a lie.


Then, turning once more towards their hostesses, they sang:


The acclamation which followed was taken up beyond the door of the supper-room by many of the other guests and renewed time after time, Freddy Malins acting as officer with his fork on high.


The piercing morning air came into the hall where they were standing so that Aunt Kate said:


"Close the door, somebody. Mrs Malins will get her death of cold."


"Browne is out there, Aunt Kate," said Mary Jane.


"Browne is everywhere," said Aunt Kate, lowering her voice.


Mary Jane laughed at her tone.


"Really," she said archly, "he is very attentive."


"He has been laid on here like the gas," said Aunt Kate in the same tone, "all during the Christmas."


She laughed herself this time good-humouredly and then added quickly:


"But tell him to come in, Mary Jane, and close the door. I hope to goodness he didn't hear me."


At that moment the hall-door was opened and Mr Browne came in from the doorstep, laughing as if his heart would break. He was dressed in a long green overcoat with mock astrakhan cuffs and collar and wore on his head an oval fur cap. He pointed down the snow-covered quay from where the sound of shrill prolonged whistling was borne in.


"Teddy will have all the cabs in Dublin out," he said.


Gabriel advanced from the little pantry behind the office, struggling into his overcoat and, looking round the hall, said:


"Gretta not down yet?"


"She's getting on her things, Gabriel," said Aunt Kate.


"Who's playing up there?" asked Gabriel.


"Nobody. They're all gone."


"O no, Aunt Kate," said Mary Jane. "Bartell D'Arcy and Miss O'Callaghan aren't gone yet."


"Someone is fooling at the piano anyhow," said Gabriel.


Mary Jane glanced at Gabriel and Mr Browne and said with a shiver:


"It makes me feel cold to look at you two gentlemen muffled up like that. I wouldn't like to face your journey home at this hour."


"I'd like nothing better this minute," said Mr Browne stoutly, "than a rattling fine walk in the country or a fast drive with a good spanking goer between the shafts."


"We used to have a very good horse and trap at home," said Aunt Julia sadly.


"The never-to-be-forgotten Johnny," said Mary Jane, laughing.


Aunt Kate and Gabriel laughed too.


"Why, what was wonderful about Johnny?" asked Mr Browne.


"The late lamented Patrick Morkan, our grandfather, that is," explained Gabriel, "commonly known in his later years as the old gentleman, was a glue-boiler."


"O now, Gabriel," said Aunt Kate, laughing, "he had a starch mill."


"Well, glue or starch," said Gabriel, "the old gentleman had a horse by the name of Johnny. And Johnny used to work in the old gentleman's mill, walking round and round in order to drive the mill. That was all very well; but now comes the tragic part about Johnny. One fine day the old gentleman thought he'd like to drive out with the quality to a military review in the park."


"The Lord have mercy on his soul," said Aunt Kate compassionately.


"Amen," said Gabriel. "So the old gentleman, as I said, harnessed Johnny and put on his very best tall hat and his very best stock collar and drove out in grand style from his ancestral mansion somewhere near Back Lane, I think."


Everyone laughed, even Mrs Malins, at Gabriel's manner and Aunt Kate said:


"O now, Gabriel, he didn't live in Back Lane, really. Only the mill was there."


"Out from the mansion of his forefathers," continued Gabriel, "he drove with Johnny. And everything went on beautifully until Johnny came in sight of King Billy's statue: and whether he fell in love with the horse King Billy sits on or whether he thought he was back again in the mill, anyhow he began to walk round the statue."


Gabriel paced in a circle round the hall in his goloshes amid the laughter of the others.


"Round and round he went," said Gabriel, "and the old gentleman, who was a very pompous old gentleman, was highly indignant. 'Go on, sir! What do you mean, sir? Johnny! Johnny! Most extraordinary conduct! Can't understand the horse!'"


The peal of laughter which followed Gabriel's imitation of the incident was interrupted by a resounding knock at the hall door. Mary Jane ran to open it and let in Freddy Malins. Freddy Malins, with his hat well back on his head and his shoulders humped with cold, was puffing and steaming after his exertions.


"I could only get one cab," he said.


"O, we'll find another along the quay," said Gabriel.


"Yes," said Aunt Kate. "Better not keep Mrs Malins standing in the draught."


Mrs Malins was helped down the front steps by her son and Mr Browne and, after many manœuvres, hoisted into the cab. Freddy Malins clambered in after her and spent a long time settling her on the seat, Mr Browne helping him with advice. At last she was settled comfortably and Freddy Malins invited Mr Browne into the cab. There was a good deal of confused talk, and then Mr Browne got into the cab. The cabman settled his rug over his knees, and bent down for the address. The confusion grew greater and the cabman was directed differently by Freddy Malins and Mr Browne, each of whom had his head out through a window of the cab. The difficulty was to know where to drop Mr Browne along the route, and Aunt Kate, Aunt Julia and Mary Jane helped the discussion from the doorstep with cross-directions and contradictions and abundance of laughter. As for Freddy Malins he was speechless with laughter. He popped his head in and out of the window every moment to the great danger of his hat, and told his mother how the discussion was progressing, till at last Mr Browne shouted to the bewildered cabman above the din of everybody's laughter:


"Do you know Trinity College?"


"Yes, sir," said the cabman.


"Well, drive bang up against Trinity College gates," said Mr Browne, "and then we'll tell you where to go. You understand now?"


"Right, sir," said the cabman.


The horse was whipped up and the cab rattled off along the quay amid a chorus of laughter and adieus.


Gabriel had not gone to the door with the others. He was in a dark part of the hall gazing up the staircase. A woman was standing near the top of the first flight, in the shadow also. He could not see her face but he could see the terracotta and salmon-pink panels of her skirt which the shadow made appear black and white. It was his wife. She was leaning on the banisters, listening to something. Gabriel was surprised at her stillness and strained his ear to listen also. But he could hear little save the noise of laughter and dispute on the front steps, a few chords struck on the piano and a few notes of a man's voice singing.


He stood still in the gloom of the hall, trying to catch the air that the voice was singing and gazing up at his wife. There was grace and mystery in her attitude as if she were a symbol of something. He asked himself what is a woman standing on the stairs in the shadow, listening to distant music, a symbol of. If he were a painter he would paint her in that attitude. Her blue felt hat would show off the bronze of her hair against the darkness and the dark panels of her skirt would show off the light ones. Distant Music he would call the picture if he were a painter.


The hall-door was closed; and Aunt Kate, Aunt Julia and Mary Jane came down the hall, still laughing.


"Well, isn't Freddy terrible?" said Mary Jane. "He's really terrible."


Gabriel said nothing but pointed up the stairs towards where his wife was standing. Now that the hall-door was closed the voice and the piano could be heard more clearly. Gabriel held up his hand for them to be silent. The song seemed to be in the old Irish tonality and the singer seemed uncertain both of his words and of his voice. The voice, made plaintive by distance and by the singer's hoarseness, faintly illuminated the cadence of the air with words expressing grief:


O, the rain falls on my heavy locks And the dew wets my skin, My babe lies cold....


"O," exclaimed Mary Jane. "It's Bartell D'Arcy singing and he wouldn't sing all the night. O, I'll get him to sing a song before he goes."


"O do, Mary Jane," said Aunt Kate.


Mary Jane brushed past the others and ran to the staircase, but before she reached it the singing stopped and the piano was closed abruptly.


"O, what a pity!" she cried. "Is he coming down, Gretta?"


Gabriel heard his wife answer yes and saw her come down towards them. A few steps behind her were Mr Bartell D'Arcy and Miss O'Callaghan.


"O, Mr D'Arcy," cried Mary Jane, "it's downright mean of you to break off like that when we were all in raptures listening to you."


"I have been at him all the evening," said Miss O'Callaghan, "and Mrs Conroy too and he told us he had a dreadful cold and couldn't sing."


"O, Mr D'Arcy," said Aunt Kate, "now that was a great fib to tell."


"Can't you see that I'm as hoarse as a crow?" said Mr D'Arcy roughly.


He went into the pantry hastily and put on his overcoat. The others, taken aback by his rude speech, could find nothing to say. Aunt Kate wrinkled her brows and made signs to the others to drop the subject. Mr D'Arcy stood swathing his neck carefully and frowning.


"It's the weather," said Aunt Julia, after a pause.


"Yes, everybody has colds," said Aunt Kate readily, "everybody."


"They say," said Mary Jane, "we haven't had snow like it for thirty years; and I read this morning in the newspapers that the snow is general all over Ireland."


"I love the look of snow," said Aunt Julia sadly.


"So do I," said Miss O'Callaghan. "I think Christmas is never really Christmas unless we have the snow on the ground."


"But poor Mr D'Arcy doesn't like the snow," said Aunt Kate, smiling.