It was late when he awoke and so, feeling lazy after his day's climbing, he resolved that he would not go to the races. "I'll loaf about," he said, "and to-night I'll go to a theatre." There was a letter from Mary and one from Roger. "Gerald Luke was killed in France last week, and so was Clifford Dartrey. Goeffrey Grant has been wounded badly. The Improved Tories have suffered heavily in the War...." Roger wrote.

When he had breakfasted, he left the Club and walked towards Sackville Street. He would go to the Abbey Theatre, he thought, and book a seat for the evening performance.

There was an odd, bewildered look about the people who stood in groups in Sackville Street.

"What's up?" Henry said to a bystander.

"Begod," said the man, "I think there's a rebellion on. That's what this woman says anyway!"

"A what?"

"A rebellion or something of the sort. You can ask her yourself! Begod, it's a quare day to have it. The people'll not enjoy themselves at all...."

Henry turned to the woman who was standing in the centre of the group, endlessly relating her experience.

"I went to the Gener'l," she said, "an' I said to the man behin' the counter, 'Gimme two ha'penny postcards an' a penny stamp an' change for a shillin', if you please!' and I hadn't the words out of my mouth 'til a man in a green uniform ... one of them Sinn Feiners ... come up to me, an' pointed a gun at me, an' toul' me to go home. 'Go home yourself!' says I, an' I give his oul' gun a push with my hand, 'an' who are you to be orderin' a person about?' 'If you don't go on when I tell you,' says he, 'I'll shoot you!' an' I declare to my God he looked as if he'd blow the head off you. 'Well, wait till I get my change anyway,' says I. 'Ye'll get no change here,' says he. 'I will so,' I said, and I turned to the man behind the counter, but, sure, God bless you, he wasn't there. 'Well, this bates all,' says I to the Sinn Feiner, 'an if the peelers catches a houldt of you, you'll get into bother over the head of this!' I picked up my shillin', an' I went out. The place was full of them. They were orderin' everybody out, except a couple or three soldiers that they made prisoners. An' if you were to go down there now, you'd see them, young fellas that I could bate with my one hand, cocked up behin' the windas with guns in their hands, an' telling people to move on out of that...."

Some one came into the group, and said "What's that?" and she turned to him and began again. "I went in to the Gener'l," she said, "an' I said to the man behin' the counter, 'Gimme two ha'penny postcards....'"

Henry made his way out of the group of listeners, and walked down the street towards the General Post Office.

"It's absurd," he said. "Ridiculous! A rebellion!"

But something was toward. On the roof of the Post Office there were two flags, a green flag with a motto on it, and a tri-colour, orange, white and green. There was hardly any wind, and the flags hung limply from their staffs, but as Henry approached the Post Office, the wind stirred, and the green flag fluttered enough for him to read what was printed on it. It bore the legend IRISH REPUBLIC.

"It's a poor sort of performance, this!" he said as he came up to the building.

All the windows on the ground floor were broken, and many of those on the upper floors, and in each window, on sacks laid on piled furniture, were one or two young volunteers, each with a rifle cocked....