General John Regan

ty. There is a table, sometimes two tables, but they have iron legs. There are benches to sit on, very narrow, and these also have iron legs. Iron is, of course, harder than wood. Men who are

ld be furnished with them. On the walls of the living-room are stands for arms. Here are ranged the short carbines with which, in extreme emerge

ded from these rooms. It is all very well to aim at the development of the aesthetic faculty for children by putting pictures and scraggy geraniums in pots into schoolrooms. No one wants a policeman to be artistic. But the love of the beautiful br

complished a series of runs and trills through which the air of "The Minstrel Boy" seemed to struggle for expre

dozed uncomfortably in a corner. Moriarty looked at him enviously. The sergeant was much the older man of the two, and was besides of portly figure. Sleep came easily to him under the most unpromising circumstances. Moriarty was not more than twenty four years of age. He was mentally and physically an active man. Befor

dy uniforms depicted on it excited no envy in his mind. His own uniform was of sober colouring, but it taught him all he wanted to know about the discomfort of such clothes in hot weather. His eyes wandered from the poster and remained fixed for some time on the front of the office of the Connacht Advocate. The door was shut and the window blind was pulled down. An imaginative man might have pictured Mr. Thaddeus Gallagher, the editor, penning ferocious attacks upon landlords at his desk inside, or demonstrating, in spite of the high temperature, the desperate wickedness of all critics of the Irish Party. But Moriarty was by temperament a realist. He suspected that Thaddeus Gallagher, divested of his coat and waistcoat, was asleep, with his feet on the office table. Next to the newspaper office was the Imperial Hote

f the day and the extreme dulness of keeping guard over a barrack which no one ever attacks might have excused a longing for bottled porter. It would have been unfair to blame Moriarty if he had entered the bar of the hotel and wakened Mr.

back of the hotel opened and a girl came out. Moriarty stopped whistling and grinned at her amiably. She was a very pretty girl, but she was nearly as dirty as the yard. Her short skirt was spotted and stained from waist-band to the ragged fringe where there had once been a hem. Her boots were caked with dry mud. They were several sizes too large for her and seemed likely to fall off when she lifted her feet from the ground. A pink cotton blouse was untidily fastened at her neck with a brass safety pin. Her hair hung in a thick pig-tail down her back. In the

y Ellen?" said Co

er skirt. She looked at Constable Moriarty out of the corners of her eyes for a moment. Then she went on again towards the pig-stye. She had large brown eyes with thick lashes. Her hair was still in a pig-tail

you're going to

said Ma

ard. Moriarty did neither the one nor the other. Mary Ellen did not expect that he would. It was her business and not his to feed the pigs. Besides, the bucket was very full. That

trough. Constable Moriarty, still seated on the wall, watched her admiringly. Her s

e said, "might be glad

at him with an air of

he then?"

bringing his dinner t

d her hands slowly on the sides of her skirt Moriarty probably felt that he had done as much as could be expected of him in the way of pretty sp

Moriarty. "Did ever you

not," s

g fortunes. There was an aunt of mine one time tha

she had no

e," said Moriarty, "and if you was to lend

" said Ma

u would," said Moriarty, "

mig

wou

Ellen, "for I've more to do

" said Moriarty. "S

ty have overcome Mary Ellen's maidenly suspicions. She might not have sat upon the wall. She would have almost certainly have yielded her st

way to somewhere. It's a curious thing, so it is, that them motor drivers never knows the way to the place they're going

outside Doyle's Hotel. Moriarty went into the barrack and wakened the sergeant. He had a keen sense of his duty towards his superior officer. It would not h

inked irritably at the stranger. The strong sunlight affected his eyes, and the rude way in which he had been awakened from his sleep overcame for a moment the natural instinct of the hotel keeper. All hotel keepers are civil to possib

tranger, "are you

" said

ter?" said t

ds or boots in Ballymoy. An official of a minor kind, an instructor in agriculture, or a young lady sent out to better the lot of domestic fowls, was stranded now and

what?" sa

" said the

might try them at the police barrack. The sergeant's an obliging man,

ing," said the stranger. "What I want

ised the possibilit

d welcome. I'd be glad if we had a gentle

spoke and shoute

y stagnant?" sa

ary Ellen, Mary Elle

his car. He looked up an

I've seen considerable stagnation, but this licks the worst I've struck yet.

re, of

tcher's son, crouched, half concealed, behind the body of a dead sheep which hung from a hook outside the door of his father's shop. He too was watching. One side of the window blind of the Connacht Eagle office was pulled aside. Thaddeus Gallagher was without doub

enough, though I don't say but that business m

. But she had not found time to wash her face. This was not her fault. Washing is a serious business. In Mary

when you heard me c

race which had discovered the folly of being in a hurry about anything.

coming?"

imes are. But his eccentricities in no way mattered to Mary Ellen. The wisdom of the ages was hers. The Irish have it. So have eastern peoples. They w

aid Doyle severely, "will

ine of the black transferred from the kitchen kettle to her cheek reached from her ear to the point of her chin. It was broken as her smil

d Doyle, "and take the gentle

stranger, "is Billin

t now?" said Doy

bags and then a photographic camera with tripod legs, strapped together. Doyle took

ling, "that this town kind of c

d Doyle, "but it migh

king up the town, to begin with her. It did not please her to be wakened up. She looked at Mr. Billing anxio

oned to hustle quite considerable. I'd rather li

"I'd be glad if you'd try

g for several days. The prospect was gratifying to Doyle. A guest who travelled i

ldest of them prodded the tyres with his fingers. The window of the office of the Connacht Eagle was opened, and Mr. Thaddeus Gallagher looked out Young Kerrigan emerged from the shelter of the body of the dead sheep and stood outside the

hat, every one o

e west of Ireland. Sergeant Colgan would have made it respected anywhere. His appearance was far more impressive th

e car," said

arty, "as fine a o

will be a high up ma

," said

ering-wheel with interest. He glanced intelligently a

pointing it out to Moriarty,

of them," sa

along with it," s

" said Moriarty, "must