General John Regan Part 27

"I don't know what tune it is," said Kerrigan.

"You're a liar," said Gallagher. "You know well what tune it is."

"Speak civil now, Thady," said Doyle, "speak civil to the boy."

"I may be a liar," said Kerrigan, "but it's the truth I told you this minute. And liar or no liar it's the truth I'll speak now, when I tell you that I'm not near as d.a.m.ned a liar as yourself, Mr. Gallagher. So there's for you. What do you mean by telling the American gentleman that I was married to Mary Ellen and her with twins? Was that a lie now or was it not? Twins! c.o.c.k the like of that one up with twins! If I'm a liar I'd tell more sensible lies than that."

"Whisht, now, whisht," said Doyle. "Sure if Mr. Gallagher said that, isn't the girl a cousin of his own, and hadn't he the best right to say it?"

"Come along out of this," said Gallagher.

"The sooner you're gone the better I'll be pleased," said Kerrigan.

"And let me tell you this, Mr. Kerrigan, junior. You'll be sorry for this day's work for the longest day ever you live. When the League boys hear, and they will hear, about the tune that you mean to play??"

"Come along now, Thady," said Doyle. "Come along. You've enough said.

We're late for the meeting of the committee already, and we'll be later yet if you don't come on. You wouldn't like to keep Father McCormack waiting on you."

"I've had enough of your committee," said Gallagher. "What's your statue only foolishness?"

"Sure everybody knows that," said Doyle.

"And what's your Lord-Lieutenant only??"

"Come on, now," said Doyle, "isn't it for the benefit of the town we're doing it? And it's yourself that's always to the fore when there's good work to be done."

"I will not go with you," said Gallagher.

They had pa.s.sed through Kerrigan's shop and reached the street, when Gallagher delivered this ultimatum. Doyle hesitated. He was already late for the committee meeting. If he waited to coax Gallagher out of his bad temper he might miss the meeting altogether. He looked at the door of the hotel. Father McCormack was standing at it, waiting, perhaps, for him and Gallagher.

"Come now, Thady," he said, "have sense. Don't you see Father McCormack waiting for you?"

"I see him," said Gallagher.

"And don't you know well enough that you'll have no luck if you go against the clergy?"

The appeal was a strong one, and had he been in any ordinary temper Gallagher would have yielded to it at once. But he was very angry indeed, far too angry to be influenced by purely religious considerations. He walked straight across the square to his office, entered it, and slammed the door behind him. Doyle followed him as far as the threshold. There he stopped and looked round. He saw Father McCormack go into the hotel. A minute later Mrs. Gregg hurried down the street and went into the hotel. Doyle sighed heavily and entered Gallagher's office. Difficult and unpleasant as his task was likely to be, he felt that he must propitiate Thady Gallagher.

"Thady," he said, "is there a drop of anything to drink in the place?"

"There is not," said Gallagher, "nor I wouldn't drink it if there was."

This confirmed Doyle's view of the extreme seriousness of the situation.

That Gallagher should be prepared to defy the clergy was bad enough.

That he should adopt an ascetic's att.i.tude towards drink was worse. But Doyle did not quite believe that Gallagher meant what he said. He opened a door at the far end of the office and whistled loudly. A small boy who had been cleaning type in the printing-room, appeared, rubbing his inky hands on his trousers.

"Michael Antony," said Doyle, "will you step across to the hotel and tell Mary Ellen to give you the bottle of whisky that she'll find in the cupboard in my own room? If you can't find Mary Ellen?and it's hardly ever she is to be found when she's wanted?you can fetch the bottle yourself. If you don't know the way to my room you ought to."

Michael Antony, who was very well accustomed to errands of this kind, went off at once. Doyle glanced at Gallagher, who appeared to be absorbed in completing the transcription of his shorthand notes, the task at which he had been interrupted in the morning by young Kerrigan's cornet playing. He seemed to be very busy. Doyle got up and left the room, went into the kitchen which lay beyond the printing-room, and returned with two tumblers and a jug of water. Gallagher looked up from his writing for an instant. Doyle noticed with pleasure the expression of violent anger was fading from his eyes. Michael Antony, who was a brisk and willing boy, returned with a bottle rather more than half full of whisky.

"Mary Ellen was upstairs along with a lady," he said. "But I found the bottle."

"If you were three years older," said Doyle, "I'd give you a drop for your trouble. But it wouldn't be good for you, Michael Antony, and your mother wouldn't be pleased if she heard you were taking it."

"I have the pledge since Christmas, anyway," said Michael Antony.

"Thady," said Doyle, when the boy had left the room, "it's a drink you want to quench the rage that's in you."

Gallagher looked up from his papers. He did not say anything, but Doyle understood exactly what he would have said if his pride had not prevented him from speaking.

"The width of two fingers in the bottom of the tumbler," said Doyle, "with as much water on top of that as would leave you free to say that you weren't drinking it plain."

The amount of water necessary to soothe Gallagher's conscience was very small. Doyle added it from the jug in driblets of about a teaspoonful at a time. At the sound of the third splash Gallagher raised his hand.

Doyle laid down the jug at once. Gallagher, without looking up from his papers, stretched out his left hand and felt about until he grasped the tumbler. He raised it to his lips and took a mouthful of whisky.

"Thady," said Doyle, "you've no great liking for Mr. Ford."

"I have not," said Gallagher. "Isn't he always going against me at the Petty Sessions, he and the old Major together, and treating me as if I wasn't a magistrate the same as the best of them?"

"He does that, and it's a crying shame, so it is, that he's allowed to; but sure that's the way things are in this country."

Gallagher took another gulp of whisky and waited. Doyle said nothing more. He appeared to have nothing more to say and to have mentioned Mr.

Ford's name merely for the sake of making conversation. But Gallagher wished to develop the subject.

"What about Mr. Ford?" he said, after a long silence.

"He's terrible down on the erection of the statue to General John Regan."

"I'm that myself," said Gallagher.

"Mr. Ford will be pleased when he hears it; for there'll be no statue if you set your face against it. It'll be then that Mr. Ford will be proud of himself. He'll be saying all round the Country that it was him put a stop to it."

"It will not be him that put a stop to it."

"It's what he'll say, anyway," said Doyle.

Gallagher finished his whisky in two large gulps.

"Let him," he said.

"Have another drop," said Doyle. "It's doing you good."

Gallagher pushed his tumbler across the table. Doyle replenished it.

"I'd be sorry," said Doyle, "if Mr. Ford was to be able to say he'd got the better of you, Thady, in a matter of the kind."

"It'll not be me he'll get the better of."

"He'll say it," said Doyle, "and what's more there's them that will believe it. For they'll say, recollecting the speech you made on Tuesday, that you were in favour of the statue, and that only for Mr.