“I can’t find the letter high or low,” said Doyle.

“Maybe now,” said Father McCormack, “it’s not in your pocket at all.”

“It should be,” said Doyle, “for it was there I put it after showing it to the doctor here yesterday.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Dr. O’Grady, “you can tell us what he said in your own words.”

“What I told my nephew,” said Doyle, “when I was writing to him, was that the committee was a bit pressed in the matter of time, owing to next Thursday week being the only day that it was convenient for the Lord-Lieutenant to attend for the opening of the statue. Well, gentlemen, by the height of good luck it just happens that my nephew has a statue on hand which he thinks would do us.”

“He has what?” said the Major.

“A statue that has been left on his hands,” said Doyle. “The way of it was this. It was ordered by the relatives of a deceased gentleman, and it was to have been put up in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin.”

“That shows,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that it’s a first rate statue. They wouldn’t let you put up anything second rate in a cathedral like that.”

“It must be a good one, surely,” said Father McCormack.

“But when the relatives of the deceased party went into his affairs,” said Doyle, “they found he hadn’t died near as well off as they thought he was going to; so they told my nephew that they wouldn’t take the statue and couldn’t pay for it. It was pretty near finished at the time, and what my nephew says is that he could make sure of having it ready for us by the end of this week at the latest.”

“Look here, O’Grady,” said the Major, “I’m as fond of a joke as any man; but I must draw the line somewhere. I’m hanged if I’ll be mixed up in any way with a second-hand statue.”

“It’s not second-hand,” said Dr. O’Grady, “it’s perfectly new. At this moment it isn’t even finished; I wouldn’t ask this committee to buy anything second hand. But you can surely see, Major—you do see, for you raised the point yourself, that with the very short time at our disposal we must, if we are to have a statue at all, get one that’s more or less ready made.”

“But—Good Heavens! O’Grady,” said the Major. “How can you possibly put up a statue of somebody else and call it General John Regan? It won’t be the least like him. How can you—the thing’s too absurd even for you. Who was this man that the statue was made for?”

“Who was he, Doyle?” said Dr. O’Grady. “It doesn’t really matter to us who he was; but you may as well tell the Major so as to satisfy him.”

“I disremember his name,” said Doyle, “and I can’t lay my hand on the letter; but he was a Deputy-Lieutenant of whatever county he belonged to.”

“There you are now, Major,” said Dr. O’Grady. “A Deputy-Lieutenant! Nothing could be more respectable than that. You’re only a J.P. yourself, and I don’t believe you’ll ever be anything more. You can’t afford to turn up your nose at a Deputy-Lieutenant. We shan’t be doing any injury to the General’s reputation by allowing him to be represented by a man of high position, most likely of good family, who was at all events supposed to be well off before he died.”

“I wasn’t thinking of the General’s reputation,” said the Major. “I don’t care a hang——”

“I don’t see that we are bound to consider the feelings of the Deputy-Lieutenant,” said Dr. O’Grady. “After all, if a man deliberately leads his relatives to suppose that he is rich enough to afford a statue in a cathedral and then turns out to be too poor to pay for it, he doesn’t deserve much consideration.”

“I wouldn’t cross the road,” said Doyle, “to do a good turn to a man that let my nephew in the way that fellow did. For let me tell you, gentlemen, that statue would have been a serious loss to him if——”

“I’m not thinking of him or Doyle’s nephew either,” said the Major. “I don’t know who that Deputy-Lieutenant was, and I don’t care if his statue was stuck up in every market town in Ireland.”

“If you’re not thinking of the General,” said the doctor, “and if you’re not thinking of the Deputy-Lieutenant, what on earth are you grumbling about?”

“I’m grumbling, as you call it,” said the Major, “about the utterly intolerable absurdity of the whole thing. Can’t you see it? You can of course, but you won’t. Look here, Father McCormack, you’re a man of some sense and decency of feeling. Can we possibly ask the Lord-Lieutenant to come here and unveil a statue of General John Regan—whoever he was—when all we’ve got is a statue of some other man? Quite possibly the Lord-Lieutenant may have known that Deputy-Lieutenant personally, and if he recognises the statue where shall we be?”

“There’s something in what the Major says,” said Father McCormack. “I’ll not deny there’s something in what he says.”

“There isn’t,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Excuse my contradicting you flatly, Father McCormack, but there really isn’t. We all know Doyle, and we respect him; but I put it to you now, Father McCormack, I put it to any member of the committee: Is Doyle likely to have a nephew who’d be able to make a statue that anybody would recognise?”

“There’s something in that,” said Father McCormack. “I’m not well up in statues, but I’ve seen a few in my time, and all I can say is that unless Doyle’s nephew is a great deal better at the job than most of the fellows that makes them, nobody would know, unless they were told, who their statue’s meant to be like.”

“My nephew’s a good sculptor,” said Doyle. “If he wasn’t I wouldn’t have brought his name forward to-day; but what the doctor says is true enough. I’ve seen heads he’s done, for mural tablets and the like, and so far as anybody recognising them for portraits of the deceased goes, you might have changed the tablets and, barring the inscriptions, nobody would have known to the differ. Not but what they were well done, every one of them.”

“There now, Major,” said Dr. O’Grady. “That pretty well disposes of your last objection.”

“That’s only a side issue,” said the Major, speaking with a calm which was evidently forced. “My point is that we can’t, in ordinary decency, put up a statue of one man to represent another.”

“I don’t know that I altogether agree with the Major there,” said Father McCormack, “but there’s something in what he says.”

“I can’t see that there’s anything,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Deputy-Lieutenants have uniforms, haven’t they? So have Generals. Nobody can possibly know what the uniform of a Bolivian General was fifty or a hundred years ago. All we could do, even if we were having the statue entirely made to order, would be to guess at the uniform. It’s just as likely to be that of a modern Deputy-Lieutenant as anything else.”

“That’s true of course,” said Father McCormack.

“Anyway,” said Doyle, “if we’re to have a statue at all it’ll have to be this one. There’s no other for us to get, so what’s the use of talking?”

The Major shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

“There’s evidently no use my talking,” he said.

“Is it your wish then, gentlemen,” said Father McCormack, “that the offer of Mr. Aloysius Doyle to supply a statue of General John Regan be accepted by the committee?”

“It is,” said Dr. O’Grady.

“Subject to the price being satisfactory,” said Gallagher. “We haven’t heard the price yet.”

“I have the letter about the price which my nephew sent me,” said Doyle, “and I think you’ll all agree with me that he’s giving it cheap.”

“He ought to,” said Gallagher, “considering that if he doesn’t sell it to us it’s not likely he’ll sell it at all.”

“The demand for second-hand statues must be small,” said the Major.

“What he says is,” said Doyle, “that considering he’s dealing with a member of his own family he’ll let the statue go at no more than the price of the raw material, not making any charge for the work he’s putting into it. I don’t know that we can expect more than that from him.”

“You cannot, of course,” said Father McCormack.

“Let’s hear the figure,” said Gallagher.

“I should say,” said the Major, “that £10 would be a liberal offer on our part.”

“Shut up, Major,” said Dr. O’Grady. “What do you know about the price of statues? You wouldn’t get a plaster cast of a pet dog for £10.”

Doyle smiled amiably.

“There’s not a man in Ballymoy,” he said, “fonder of a joke than the Major.”

“Let’s hear the figure,” said Gallagher.

“What he says,” said Doyle, “is £81.”

Major Kent whistled.

“But I wouldn’t wonder,” said Doyle, “but you could get him to knock 10s. off that and say £80 10s.”

Dr. O’Grady pulled a sheet of paper towards him and began to write rapidly.

“Statue £80 10s.,” he said. “Carriage, say £1 10s. The railway companies are robbers. Expenses of erection, say £2. You’ll let us have any mortar and cement that are needed for nothing, Doyle; so we’ll only have to pay for labour. I’ll superintend the erection without charging a fee. Illuminated Address, £4. Bouquet £1 is. That’s a good deal to give for a bouquet, but I don’t think we’ll get a decent one for less. Dresses, etc., for Mary Ellen—the green stockings will have to be ordered specially, and so will come to a little money. And we may have to get that grey tweed dress which Mrs. Ford wants, just to prevent her kicking up a row. Two dresses, stockings, etc., for Mary Ellen, say £4. That will include shoes with buckles. She’ll have to wear an Irish brooch of some sort, but we’ll probably be able to borrow that. Lunch for the Vice Regal party on the day of the unveiling—there’ll be at least four of them, say five in case of accidents. That will allow for two aides de camp and a private secretary. They can’t want more. The five of us and Mr. Billing, who said he’d be back for the ceremony. That makes eleven. I suppose you could do us really well, Doyle, at 7s. 6d. a head, including drinks, and there’ll have to be three or four bottles of champagne on the sideboard, just for the look of the thing. We may not have to open more than one. Eleven times 7s. 6d. makes £4 2s. 6d. What do you mean to charge us for the printing of the posters, Gallagher?”

“I’ll say £3,” said Gallagher, “to include posters and advertisements in the paper. I’ll be losing money on it.”

“You’ll not be losing much,” said Dr. O’Grady, “but we’ll say £3. That will make—let me see——”

He added up his column of figures and then checked the result by adding them downwards.

“That comes to £100 3s. 6d.,” he said, “and we’ve not put down anything for postage. You’ll have to get your nephew to knock another 10s. off the price of the statue. After all, when he said £81, he must have been prepared to take £80, and he’ll have to cut the inscription for us without extra charge.”

“He might,” said Doyle, “if we approached him on the subject.”

“He’ll have to,” said Dr. O’Grady, “for £100 is all we’ve got, and we can’t run into debt.”

“He did say,” said Doyle, “that 3d. a letter was the regular charge for cutting inscriptions.”

“We’ll make it short,” said Dr. O’Grady. “We won’t stick him for more than about 10s. over the inscription. After all long inscriptions are vulgar. I propose that Mr. Thaddeus Gallagher, as the only representative of the press among us, be commissioned to write the inscription.”

“We couldn’t have a better man,” said Father McCormack.

“I’ll not do it,” said Gallagher. He had a solid reason for refusing the honour offered to him. The writer of an inscription at the base of a statue is almost bound to make some statement about the person whom the statue represents.

“You will now, Thady,” said Doyle, “and you’ll do it well.”

“I will not,” said Gallagher. “Let the doctor do it himself.”

“There’s no man in Connacht better fit to draw up an inscription of the kind,” said Father McCormack, “than Mr. Gallagher.”

Thady Gallagher was susceptible to flattery. He would have liked very well to draw up an inscription for the statue, modelling it on the resolutions which he was accustomed to propose at political meetings in favour of’ Home Rule. But he was faced with what seemed to him an insuperable difficulty. He did not know who General John Regan was.

“Let the doctor do it,” he said reluctantly.

“Whoever does it,” said Doyle, “it’ll have to be done at once. My nephew said that on account of the way we are pressed for time he’d be glad if the words of the inscription was wired to him to-day.”

“It would, maybe, be better,” said Father McCor-mack, “if you were to do it, doctor. We’ll all be sorry that the words don’t come from the accomplished pen of our respected fellow citizen, Mr. Gallagher——”

“I’ll not do it,” said Gallagher, “for I wouldn’t know what to say.”

“Write it out and have done with it, O’Grady,” said the Major. “What’s the good of keeping us sitting here all day?”

“Very well,” said Dr. O’Grady. “After all, it’s not much trouble. How would this do? ‘General John Regan—Patriot—Soldier—Statesman—Vivat Bolivia’.”

“We couldn’t do better,” said Father McCormack.

“What’s the meaning of the poetry at the end of it?” asked Gallagher.

“It’s not poetry,” said Dr. O’Grady, “and it doesn’t mean much. It’s the Latin for ‘Long live Bolivia.’”

Gallagher rose to his feet. He had been obliged to confess himself unable to write an inscription; but he was thoroughly well able to make a speech.

“Considering,” he said, “that the town of Ballymoy is in the Province of Connacht which is one of the provinces of Ireland, and considering the unswerving attachment through long centuries of alien oppression which the Irish people have shown to the cause of national independence, it’s my opinion that there should be something in the inscription, be the same more or less, about Home Rule. What I say, and what I’ve always said——”

“Very well,” said Dr. O’Grady, “I’ll put ‘Esto Perpetua,’ if you like. It’s the same number of letters, and it’s what Grattan said about the last Home Rule Parliament. That ought to satisfy you, and I’m sure the Major won’t mind.”

“I’m pretty well past minding anything now,” said the Major.

“There’s no example in history,” said Gallagher, “of determined devotion to a great cause equal to that of the Irish people who have been returning Members of Parliament pledged to the demand which has been made with unfaltering tongue on the floor of the House at Westminster——”

“Get a telegraph form, Doyle,” said Dr. O’Grady, “and copy out that inscription while Thady is finishing his speech.”

“There’s one other point that I’d like to mention,” said Doyle, “and it’s this——”

“Wait a minute, Thady,” said Dr. O’Grady. “We’ll just deal with this point of Doyle’s and then you’ll be able to go on without interruption. What is it, Doyle?”

“My nephew says,” said Doyle, “that he’d be glad of a cheque on account for the statue; he having been put to a good deal of out-of-pocket expense.”

“Very well,” said Dr. O’Grady, “send him £25. Now go on, Thady.”

“Is it me send him £25?” said Doyle doubtfully.

“Of course it’s you. You’re the treasurer.”

“But it’s you has Mr. Billing’s cheque,” said Doyle.

“I haven’t got Mr. Billing’s cheque,” said Dr. O’Grady.

“If you haven’t,” said Doyle, helplessly, “who has?”

“It’s my belief,” said Gallagher, in a tone of extreme satisfaction, “that there’s no cheque in it.”

“Do you mean to say, Doyle,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that you’ve been such a besotted idiot as to let that American escape out of this without paying over his subscription for the statue?”

“You’ll never see him again,” said Gallagher. “He’s not the first man that skipped the country after letting everybody in.”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” said Father McCormack, “order, please, order.”

“We’ll have to drop the whole thing now,” said the Major, “and I must say I’m extremely glad.”

“I’m no more an idiot than you are yourself, doctor,” said Doyle, “and I won’t have language of the kind used to me. How was I to know he hadn’t given you the cheque?”

“You were the treasurer,” said Dr. O’Grady. “What on earth is a treasurer for if he doesn’t get in the subscriptions?”

“That nephew of yours will have his statue on his hands a bit longer,” said Gallagher.

He still spoke in a tone of satisfaction; but even as he contemplated the extreme disappointment of Doyle’s nephew it occurred to him that there might be a difficulty about paying his own bill for £3. The same thought struck Father McCormack.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “there’s been an unfortunate mistake, but it might be worse.”

“That American fellow has us robbed,” said Gallagher.

“We’ll prosecute him when we catch him,” said Doyle.

“It might be worse,” said Father McCormack. “We haven’t spent very much yet. The dresses for Mary Ellen can hardly have been put in hand yet, so we won’t have to pay for them.”

“There’s my bill,” said Gallagher.

“So there’s only Mr. Gallagher’s little account,” said Father McCormack.

“We’ll have a house-to-house collection,” said Doyle, “till we get the money raised.”

“Don’t be a blithering idiot, Doyle,” said Dr. O’Grady. “How can you go round and ask people to subscribe to——”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” said Father McCormack.

“We must fall back upon the subscription list that was published in the Connacht Eagle,” said the Major, “as well as I recollect we all promised——”

“Nobody promised anything,” said Doyle. “It was Dr. O’Grady that promised for us and before I pay a penny for a man that owes me more this minute than he can pay——”

“Oh, do shut up, Doyle,” said Dr. O’Grady. “What’s the good of raking up the past? What we’ve got to do now is to find a way out of the confounded hole we’ve been let into through your incompetence and carelessness.”

“I’m down for £5,” said the Major, “and I’ll consider that I’m very well out of this business if I have to pay no more. I’d rather give five pounds any day than stand by watching Mary Ellen and the Lord-Lieutenant making faces at a second-hand statue.”

“It’s a handsome offer, so it is,” said Father McCormack, “and the thanks of the meeting——”

“I’ll not pay a penny,” said Doyle, “and what’s more, if the doctor doesn’t pay me what he owes me I’ll put him into the County Court.”

“It’s you that’ll have to pay,” said Gallagher, “whether you like it or not.”

“I’m damned if I do,” said Doyle.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” said Father McCormack, “will you mind what you’re saying? That’s no language to be using, Mr. Doyle; and I don’t think the doctor has any right—not that I mind myself what you say for I’m not particular; but if it was to get out to the ears of the general public that this meeting had been conducting itself in ways that’s very far from being reputable——”

“There’s no general public here,” said Dr. O’Grady, “and that’s just as well.”

“What I’m trying to tell you,” said Father McCormack, “and what I would tell you if you’d listen to me, is that there’s somebody knocking at the door of the room we’re in and whoever it is must have heard every word that’s been said this last five minutes.”

Doyle and Gallagher stopped growling at each other when the priest spoke. Dr. O’Grady sat upright in his chair and bent his head towards the door. There was a moment’s silence in the room and a very faint, as it were an apologetic, knock was heard at the door.

“Come in,” said Dr. O’Grady.

Mary Ellen opened the door and looked in. She appeared to be rather frightened. If, as Father McCormack supposed she heard every word spoken during the previous five minutes, she had very good reason for feeling nervous. She had a still better reason a moment later when Doyle caught sight of her. Doyle had completely lost command of his temper.

“Get away out of that, Mary Ellen,” he said, “and if I catch sight of you here again before I call for you I’ll have the two ears cut off you and yourself sent home to your mother with them in a paper parcel in the well of the car.”

Curiously enough this appalling threat seemed to cheer Mary Ellen a little. She smiled.

“Mrs. Gregg says——” she said.

“If you’re not outside the door and it shut after you before I’ve done speaking I’ll do what I’ve said and worse on top of that,” said Doyle.

“I won’t have Mary Ellen bullied,” said Dr. O’Grady. “It’s all you’re fit for, Doyle, to frighten helpless little girls. If you’d talked that way to Billing when he was trying to run away without paying——”

“You’re a nice one to talk about paying,” said Doyle.

Dr. O’Grady left his seat and walked over lo the door.

“What is it now, Mary Ellen?” he said.

“Mrs. Gregg says,” she said, “will I be wearing a hat or will I not?”

“Go back to Mrs. Gregg,” said Dr. O’Grady, “and tell her that you will not wear a hat, but you’ll have your hair tied up with a green silk ribbon to match your stockings. Would you like that?”

“I’d as soon have a hat,” said Mary Ellen, “and Mr. Moriarty says———”

“Surely to goodness,” said Dr. O’Grady, “he hasn’t been helping to order your clothes!”

“He has not,” said Mary Ellen, “but he was outside the barrack and me coming along the street——”

“He always is,” said Dr. O’Grady.

“And he said to me that it wouldn’t do for me to be dressed up any way foolish like.”

“Let Constable Moriarty mind his own business,” said Dr. O’Grady. “You go back and tell Mrs. Gregg what I say.”

The other members of the committee sat listening with amazed interest to all Dr. O’Grady said to Mary Ellen. Even Doyle was too much astonished to attempt an interruption. He said nothing till the doctor, having dismissed Mary Ellen, returned to the table. Then he spoke.

“And who’s going to pay for the green ribbon which is to go along with the stockings? Who’s going to pay for it? That’s what I’m asking you. You needn’t be thinking that I will.”

“Gentlemen,” said Dr. O’Grady, “I owe you all an apology. I’m afraid I lost my temper for a minute or two. Father McCormack, I beg your pardon, and if I said—as I fear I did say—anything disrespectful to you as chairman——”

“Don’t speak another word, Doctor,” said Father McCormack, “you’ve said enough. Sure anyone might have been betrayed into a strong expression when he was provoked. Not that you said a word to me that you’ve any reason to be sorry for.”

“Major Kent,” said Dr. O’Grady, “if I’ve in any way insulted you——”

“Not worse than usual,” said Major Kent. “I’m quite accustomed to it.”

“Mr. Doyle,” said the doctor, “I’m afraid that in the heat of the moment I may have—but I can do no more than ask your pardon———”

“I don’t care a thraneen,” said Doyle, “what you called me, and I’ll give you leave to call me that and more every day of the week if you see your way to get the £100 out of the American gentleman.”

“I can’t do that,” said Dr. O’Grady, “but I have a proposal to lay before the meeting which I think will get us out of our difficulty.”