There are men in the world, a great many of them—who are capable of managing details with thoroughness and efficiency. These men make admirable lieutenants and fill subordinate positions so well that towards the end of their lives they are allowed to attend full dress evening parties with medals and stars hung round their necks or pinned on their coats. There are also a good many men who are capable of conceiving great ideas and forming vast plans, but who have an unconquerable aversion to anything in the way of a detail. These men generally end their days in obscure asylums, possibly in workhouses, and their ideas, after living for a while as subject matter for jests, perish unrealised. There is also a third kind of man, fortunately a very rare kind. He is capable of conceiving great ideas, and has besides an insatiable delight in working out details. He may end his days as a victorious general, or even as an emperor. If he prefers a less ostentatious kind of reward, he will die a millionaire.

Dr. Lucius O’Grady belonged to this third class. In the face of Doyle’s objection to his expenditure on posters, he was capable of conceiving on the spur of the moment and without previous meditation, the audacious and magnificent plan of bringing the Lord-Lieutenant to Ballymoy and wrestling from a reluctant treasury a sufficient sum of money to build a third pier on the beach below the town. There may have been other men in Ireland capable of making such a plan. There was certainly no one else who would have set himself, as Dr. O’Grady did, with tireless enthusiasm, to work out the details necessary to the plan’s success.

As soon as Doyle left him he mounted his bicycle and rode out to the Greggs’ home. Mr. Gregg, being the District Inspector of Police, was usually a very busy man. But the Government, though a hard task-master in the case of minor officials, does not insist on anyone inspecting or being inspected on Sunday afternoons. Mr. Gregg had taken advantage of the Government’s respect for revealed religion, and had gone out with a fishing rod to catch trout. Mrs. Gregg was at home. Being a bride of not more than three months’ standing she had nothing particular to do, and was yawning rather wearily over the fashion-plates of a ladies’ paper. She seemed unaffectedly glad to see Dr. O’Grady, and at once offered to give him tea. The doctor refused the tea, and plunged into his business.

“I suppose,” he said, “that you’ll have no objection to presenting a bouquet to Lady Chesterton when she comes to Ballymoy?”

“Is she coming?” said Mrs. Gregg. “How splendid!”

Before marrying Mr. Gregg she had lived in a Dublin suburb. Accustomed to the rich and varied life of a metropolis she found Ballymoy a little dull. She recognised Major Kent as “a dear old boy,” but he was quite unexciting. Mrs. Ford, the wife of a rather morose stipendiary magistrate, had severely snubbed Mrs. Gregg. There was no one else, and the gay frocks of Mrs. Gregg’s bridal outfit were wasting their first freshness with hardly an opportunity of being worn.

“Yes,” said Dr. O’Grady. “She’s coming with the Lord-Lieutenant to unveil the new statue.”

“How splendid!” said Mrs. Gregg again. “I heard something about the statue, but please tell me more, Dr. O’Grady. I do so want to know.”

“Oh, there’s nothing particular to tell about the statue. It’s to be to the memory of General John Regan, and will be unveiled in the usual way.”

This did not add much to the information which Mr. Gregg, who himself had gleaned what he knew from Sergeant Colgan, had already given her. But Mrs. Gregg was quite content with it. She did not, in fact, want to know anything about the statue. She only asked about it because she thought she ought to. Her mind was dwelling on the dazzling prospect of presenting a bouquet to Lady Chesterton.

“Of course I should love to,” she said. “But I wonder if I could—really, I mean.”

Dr. O’Grady was a man of quick intelligence. He realised at once that Mrs. Gregg had not been listening to his account of the statue, but that she was replying to his original suggestion.

“It’s not the least difficult,” he said. “Anyone could do it, but we’d like to have it done really well. That’s the reason we’re asking you.”

“Don’t you have to walk backwards?” said Mrs. Gregg. “I’d love to do it, of course, but I never have before.”

“There’s no necessity to walk at all. You simply stand in the front row of the spectators with the bouquet in your hand. Then, when she stops opposite you and smiles—she’ll be warned beforehand, of course—and she’s had such a lot of practice that she’s sure to do it right—you curtsey and hand up the bouquet. She’ll take it, and the whole thing will be over.”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Gregg, “is that all?”

Dr. O’Grady was conscious of a note of disappointment in her voice. He felt that he had over-emphasized the simplicity of the performance. Mrs. Gregg would have preferred a longer ceremony. He did his best to make such amends as were still possible.

“Of course,” he said, “your photograph will be in all the illustrated papers afterwards, and there will be a long description of your dress in The Irish Times.”

“I’d love to do it,” said Mrs. Gregg.

“Very well, then,” said Dr. O’Grady, “we’ll consider that settled.”

Leaving Mrs. Gregg, he rode on to Major Kent’s house. The Major, like all men who are over forty years of age, who have good consciences and balances in their banks, spent his Sunday afternoons sleeping in an armchair. No one likes being awakened, either in a bedroom by a servant, in a railway carriage by a ticket collector, or on a Sunday afternoon by a friend. The Major answered Dr. O’Grady’s greeting snappishly.

“If you’ve come,” he said, “to ask me to make a speech at that meeting of yours on Tuesday, you may go straight home again, for I won’t do it.”

“I’m not such a fool,” said Dr. O’Grady pleasantly, “as to ask you to do any such thing. I know jolly well you couldn’t. Even if you could and would, we shouldn’t want you. We have Father McCormack, and Thady Gallagher, besides the American. That’s as much as any audience could stand!”

“If it isn’t that you want,” said the Major, “what is it?”

“It’s a pity you’re in such an uncommonly bad temper, Major. If you were even in your normal condition of torpid sulkiness you’d be rather pleased to hear what I’m going to tell you.”

“If you’re going to tell me that you’ve dropped that statue folly, I shall be extremely pleased.”

“The news I have,” said Dr. O’Grady, “is far better than that. We’ve decided to ask the Lord-Lieutenant down to unveil the statue.”

“He won’t come,” said the Major, “so that’s all right.”

“He will come when it’s explained to him that——”

“Oh, if you offer him one of your explanations———”

“Look here, Major. I don’t think you quite grasp the significance of what I’m telling you. Ever since I’ve known you you’ve been deploring the disloyalty of the Irish people. I don’t blame you for that. You’re by way of being a Unionist, so of course you have to. But if you were the least bit sincere in what you say, you’d be delighted to hear that Doyle and Thady Gallagher—Thady hasn’t actually been told yet, but when he is he’ll be as pleased as everyone else—you ought to be simply overjoyed to find that men like Doyle are inviting the Lord-Lieutenant down to unveil their statue. It shows that they’re getting steadily loyaler and loyaler. Instead of exulting in the fact you start sneering in a cynical and altogether disgusting way.”

“I don’t believe much in Doyle’s loyalty,” said the Major.

“Fortunately,” said Dr. O’Grady, “Doyle thoroughly believes in yours. He agrees with me that you are the first man who ought to be asked to join the reception committee. You can’t possibly refuse.”

“I would refuse if I thought there was the slightest chance of the Lord-Lieutenant coming. Do you think I want to stand about in a tall hat along with half the blackguards in town?”

“Mrs. Gregg is going to present a bouquet,” said Dr. O’Grady.

“Looking like a fool in the middle of the street, while you play silly tricks with a statue?”

“You won’t be asked to do all that,” said Dr. O’Grady.

“I am being asked. You’re asking me this minute, and if I thought it would come off——”

“As you think it won’t you may as well join the committee.”

“I won’t be secretary,” said the Major, “and I won’t have hand, act, or part, in asking the Lord-Lieutenant to come here. We don’t want him, for one thing.”

“You’ll not be asked so much as to sign a paper,” said Dr. O’Grady. “If your name is required at the bottom of any document I’ll write it for you myself.”

“I wish to goodness,” said the Major, “that Billing—if that’s the man’s name—had stayed in America attending to his own business, whatever it is, instead of coming here and starting all this fuss. There’ll be trouble before you’ve done, O’Grady, more trouble than you care for. I wish to God it was all well over.”

Nothing is more gratifying to the prophet of evil than the fulfilment of his own prediction. When the fulfilment follows hard on the prophecy, when not more than half an hour separates them, the prophet ought to be a very happy man. This was Major Kent’s case. He foretold trouble of the most exasperating kind for Dr. O’Grady, and he was immediately justified by the event. Unfortunately he did not expect an immediate fulfilment of his words. Therefore he turned round in his chair and went to sleep again when the doctor left him. If he had been sanguine enough to expect that the doctor would be entangled in embarrassments at once, he would probably have roused himself. He would have followed Dr. O’Grady back to Ballymoy and would have had the satisfaction of gloating over the first of a long series of annoying difficulties. But the Major, though confident that trouble would come, had no hope that it would begin as soon as it did.

Dr. O’Grady was riding back to Ballymoy on his bicycle when he met Mrs. Ford, the wife of the stipendiary magistrate. She was walking briskly along the road which led out of the town. This fact at once aroused a feeling of vague uneasiness in the doctor’s mind. Mrs. Ford was a stout lady of more than fifty years of age. She always wore clothes which seemed, and probably were, much too tight for her. Her husband’s position and income entitled him to keep a pony trap, therefore Mrs. Ford very seldom walked at all. Dr. O’Grady had never before seen her walk quickly. It was plain, too, that on this occasion Mrs. Ford was walking for the mere sake of walking, a most unnatural thing for her to do. The road she was on led nowhere except to Major Kent’s house, several miles away, and it was quite impossible to suppose that she meant to call on him. She had, as Dr. O’Grady knew, quarrelled seriously with Major Kent two days earlier.

Dr. O’Grady, slightly anxious and very curious, got off his bicycle and approached Mrs. Ford on foot. He noticed at once that her face was purple in colour. It was generally red, and the unaccustomed exercise she was taking might account for the darker shade. Dr. O’Grady, arriving within a few yards of her, took off his hat very politely. The purple of Mrs. Ford’s face darkened ominously.

“Nice day,” said Dr. O’Grady. “How’s Mr. Ford?”

Mrs. Ford acknowledged this greeting with a stiff, scarcely perceptible bow. Dr. O’Grady realised at once that she was angry, very seriously angry about something. Under ordinary circumstances Mrs. Ford’s anger would not have caused Dr. O’Grady any uneasiness. She was nearly always angry with someone, and however angry she might be she would be obliged to call on Dr. O’Grady for assistance if either she or her husband fell ill. There was no other doctor in the neighbourhood. The simplest and easiest thing, under the circumstances, would have been to pass on without comment, and to wait patiently until Mrs. Ford either caught influenza or was so deeply offended with someone else as to forget her anger against him. Society in small country towns is held together very largely by the fact that it is highly inconvenient, if not actually impossible, to keep two quarrels burning briskly at the same time. When, a week or two before, Mrs. Ford had been seriously angry with Mrs. Gregg, she confided her grievances to Dr. O’Grady. Now that she was annoyed with him she would be compelled to condone Mrs. Gregg’s offence in order to tell her what Dr. O’Grady had done. In due time, so Dr. O’Grady knew, he would be forgiven in order that he might listen to the story of the quarrel, which by that time she would have picked with Major Kent. Therefore the doctor’s first impulse was to imitate the Levite in the parable, and, having looked at Mrs. Ford with sympathy, to pass by on the other side.

But Dr. O’Grady was engaged in a great enterprise. He did not see how Mrs. Ford’s anger could make or mar the success of the Lord-Lieutenant’s visit to Ballymoy, but he could not afford to take risks. No wise general likes to leave even a small wood on the flank of his line of march without discovering whether there is anything in it or not. Dr. O’Grady determined to find out, if he could, what Mrs. Ford was sulking about.

“I daresay you have heard,” he said, “about the Lord-Lieutenant’s visit to Ballymoy. The date isn’t fixed yet, but——”

Mrs. Ford sniffed and walked on without speaking. Dr. O’Grady was not the kind of man who is easily baffled. He turned round and walked beside her.

“I needn’t tell you,” he said, “that the visit may mean a good deal to Mr. Ford. We’ve all felt for a long time that his services and ability entitle him to some recognition from the Government.”

Mrs. Ford was quite unmollified. She walked on without looking round. She even walked a little quicker than she had been walking before. This was a foolish thing to do. She was a fat and elderly lady. Some of her clothes, if not all of them, were certainly too tight for her. The doctor was young and in good condition. She could not possibly hope to outstrip him in a race.

“My idea is,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that when the Lord-Lieutenant meets Mr. Ford and becomes personally acquainted with him—there’s to be a lunch, you know, in the hotel. A pretty good lunch, the best Doyle can do. Well, I confidently expect that when the Lord-Lieutenant finds out for himself what an able and energetic man Mr. Ford is—— After all, there are much nicer places than Ballymoy, besides all the jobs there are going under the Insurance Act, jolly well paid some of them, and you’d like living in Dublin, wouldn’t you, Mrs. Ford?”

Mrs. Ford stood still suddenly. She was evidently going to say something. Dr. O’Grady waited. He had to wait for some time, because the lady was very-much out of breath. At last she spoke.

“Dr. O’Grady,” she said, “I believe in plain speaking.”

Neither Dr. O’Grady nor anyone else in Ballymoy doubted the truth of this. Nearly everybody had been spoken to plainly by Mrs. Ford at one time or another. Kerrigan, the butcher, was spoken to with uncompromising plainness once a week, on Saturday mornings.

“Quite right,” said Dr. O’Grady, “there’s nothing like it.”

“Then I may as well tell you,” said Mrs. Ford, “that I think it was due to my position—however much you may dislike me personally——”

“I don’t. On the contrary——”

“——Due to my position as the wife of the resident magistrate that I, and not that Mrs. Gregg, should have been invited to present the bouquet to Lady Chesterton.”

Dr. O’Grady gasped. Then he realised that he had made a fearful blunder.

“Half an hour ago,” said Mrs. Ford, “that woman, who isn’t even a lady, bounced into my house, giggling, and told me to my face that you had asked her——”

“Silly little thing, isn’t she?” said Dr. O’Grady. “But of course, you have far too much sense to be annoyed by anything she said.”

“Don’t imagine for a moment,” said Mrs. Ford, “that I am vexed. The slight, although it was evidently intentional, does not affect me in the least. If you knew me a little better than you do, Dr. O’Grady, you would understand that I am not at all the sort of person who cares about presenting bouquets.”

“Of course not,” said Dr. O’Grady. “We quite realised that. We understood that in your position, as wife of the resident magistrate of the district, the presentation of a bouquet would have been infra dig. After all, what’s a bouquet? Poor little Mrs. Gregg! Of course it’s a great promotion for her and she’s naturally a bit above herself. But no one would dream of asking you to present a bouquet. We have far too high a respect for Mr. Ford’s position.”

“I think,” said Mrs. Ford, “that I ought to have been consulted.”

“Didn’t you get my letter?”

“I got no letter whatever. The first news I had of his Excellency’s intention of visiting Ballymoy came to me from that Mrs. Gregg half an hour ago, when she rushed into my drawing-room with her hair tumbling about her ears——”

“That’s the worst of Doyle. He means well, but he’s frightfully careless.”

“What has Mr. Doyle to do with it?”

“I gave him the letter to post. Did you really not get it?”

“I got no letter whatever.”

“I don’t know what you must have thought of us. I don’t know what Mr. Ford must have thought. I don’t know how to apologise. But the first thing we did, the very first——Mrs. Gregg and the bouquet were a mere afterthought, we just tacked her on to the programme so that the poor little woman wouldn’t feel out of it. She is a silly little thing, you know. Not more than a child after all. It was better to humour her.”

“What was in the letter which you say you posted?” said Mrs. Ford.

“I didn’t say I posted it. I said Doyle forgot to. It’s in his pocket at this moment, I expect.”

“What was in it?”

“Can you ask? There is only one thing which could possibly be in it. It expresses the unanimous wish of the committee—the reception committee, you know—Major Kent’s on it—that you should present an illuminated address of welcome to His Excellency.”

“If such a letter were really written——”

“My dear Mrs. Ford! But I don’t ask you to take my word for it. Just walk straight into Ballymoy yourself. I’ll stay here till you come back. Go into the hotel. You’ll find Doyle in his own room drinking whisky and water with Thady Gallagher. Don’t say a word to him. Don’t ask him whether he was given a letter or not. Simply put your hand into his breast pocket and take it out.”

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Ford. “I do not care to have anything to do with Mr. Doyle when he is drunk.”

“He won’t be. Not at this hour. It takes a lot to make Doyle drunk.”

“When the letter arrives, if it ever does, I shall consult Mr. Ford as to what answer I shall give.”

“I can tell you what he’ll say beforehand,” said Dr. O’Grady. “He’ll realise the importance of the illuminated address. He’ll understand that it’s the thing and that the bouquet——”

“Good-bye, Dr. O’Grady,” said Mrs. Ford.

The doctor mounted his bicycle. His face was very nearly as purple as Mrs. Ford’s. He had, with the greatest difficulty survived a crisis. He rode at top speed into Ballymoy, and dismounted, very hot, at the door of the hotel. It was shut. He ran round to the back of the house and entered the yard. Constable Moriarty and Mary Ellen were sitting side by side on the wall of the pig-stye. They were sitting very close together. Moriarty was whistling “Eileen Allan-nah” softly in Mary Ellen’s ear.

“Where’s Mr. Doyle?” said Dr. O’Grady.

“As regards the visit of the Lord-Lieutenant,” said Constable Moriarty rousing himself and moving a little bit away from Mary Ellen, “what I was saying this minute to Mary Ellen was——”

“Where’s Mr. Doyle?” said Dr. O’Grady.

“He’s within,” said Mary Ellen. “Where else would he be?”

“As regards the Lord-Lieutenant,” said Constable Moriarty, “and seeing that Mary Ellen might be a near friend of the gentleman that the statue’s for——”

Dr. O’Grady hurried through the back door. He found Doyle sitting over account books in his private-room. That was his way of spending Sunday afternoon.

“A sheet of notepaper,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Quick now, Doyle. I have my fountain pen, so don’t bother about ink.”

“Where’s the hurry?” said Doyle.

“There’s every hurry.”

He wrote rapidly, folded the letter, addressed it to Mrs. Ford, and handed it to Doyle.

“Put that in your trousers’ pocket,” he said, “and roll it round a few times. I want it to look as if it had been there for two or three days.”

“What’s the meaning of this at all?” said Doyle.

“Now get your hat. Go off as fast as you can pelt to Mr. Ford’s house. Give that letter to the servant and tell her that you only found out this afternoon that you’d forgotten to post it.”

“Will you tell me——?”

“I’ll tell you nothing till you’re back. Go on now, Doyle. Go at once. If you hurry you’ll get to the house before she does. She was two miles out of the town when I left her and too exhausted to walk fast. But if you do meet her remember that you haven’t seen me since yesterday. Have you got that clear in your head? Very well. Off with you. And, I say, I expect the letter will be looking all right when you take it out again, but if it isn’t just rub it up and down the front of your trousers for a while. I want it to be brownish and a good deal crumpled. It won’t do any harm if you blow a few puffs of tobacco over it.”