General John Regan Part 32

Moriarty appeared to have conveyed the message to young Kerrigan.

Dr. O'Grady, still leaning out of the window, spoke again, this time evidently to Kerrigan.

"Don'ts you know you're getting it wrong every time?" he said.

Young Kerrigan's voice, faint and apologetic, reached the members of the committee through the window.

"Sure I know that well enough; but the devil's in it that I can't get it right."

"Listen to me now," said Dr. O'Grady.

He whistled the tune shrilly, beating time with his hand.

"Now, Kerrigan," he said, "try it after me."

He whistled it again slowly. Kerrigan followed him note by note on the cornet. After a very short hesitation he got over the difficult pa.s.sage.

Dr. O'Grady drew in his head and returned to the table with a sigh of relief.

"I think he has it now," he said, "but it's a tough job teaching that fellow anything."

"What tune is it?" said Gallagher.

"It's not a tune that ever you heard before," said Dr. O'Grady.

"I'm of opinion that I did hear it," said Gallagher. "But let you speak out now if you're not ashamed of it, and tell me what tune it is."

"It's the 'Battle March of King Malachi the Brave,'" said Dr. O'Grady, "the same that he played when he was driving the English out of Ireland.

And you can't possibly have heard it before because the ma.n.u.script of it was only dug up the other day at Tara, and this is the first time it's ever been played publicly in the west of Ireland."

"There now, Thady," said Doyle, "didn't I tell you all along that you'd nothing to do only to ask the doctor?"

"I'm of opinion that I did hear it," said Gallagher. "You may say what you like about the Hill of Tara, but I've heard that tune."

"It's just possible," said Dr. O'Grady, "that Mr. Billing may have whistled it while he was here. I believe the people of Bolivia are fond of it. They learned it, of course, from General John Regan. He may have heard it from his grandmother. It's wonderful how long music survives among the people long after the regular professional musicians have forgotten all about it. But I mustn't interrupt you any more, Thady. You were just making a speech about the Lord-Lieutenant. Perhaps you have finished what you were saying. As well as I recollect we were just settling about the statue."

"Major Kent was after saying," said Father McCor-mack, "that we couldn't get a statue in the time."

"My friend Mr. Doyle," said Dr. O'Grady, "has a proposal to lay before the meeting. Where's that card, Doyle, that you showed me last week?"

Doyle drew a bundle of grimy papers from his breast pocket and went through them slowly. One, which appeared to be a letter written on business paper, he laid on the table in front of him. At the bottom of the bundle he came on a large card. He handed this to Father McCormack.

The printing on it was done in Curiously shaped letters, evidently artistic in intention, with a tendency towards the ecclesiastical. Round the outside of the card was a deep border of black, as if the owner of it were in mourning for a near relative.

Father McCormack looked at it dubiously.

"Read it out," said Dr. O'Grady. "I'd like the Major to hear exactly what's on it."

"'Mr. Aloysius Doyle,'" read Father McCormack.

"He's a nephew of my own," said Doyle.

"He would be," said Gallagher. "If he wasn't we'd hear nothing about him."

He was still feeling sore about the "Battle March of King Malachi the Brave," and was anxious to make himself disagreeable to someone. It struck him that it would be easy to annoy Doyle by suggesting that he was trying to do a good turn to his nephew at the expense of the statue fund.

"I needn't tell you, gentlemen," said Doyle, with great dignity, "that it's not on account of his being a nephew of my own that I'm recommending him to the notice of this committee. If he was fifty times my nephew I wouldn't mention his name without I was sure that he was as good a man as any other for the job we have on hand."

No one, of course, believed this, but no one wanted to argue with Doyle about it. Father McCormack went on reading from the black-edged card which he held in his hand.

"'Mortuary Sculptor,'"

"Sculptor!" said Dr. O'Grady. "You hear that, Major, don't you?

Sculptors are people who make statues."

"Mortuary sculptors, I suppose," said the Major viciously, "make statues of dead men."

"The General's dead anyway," said Doyle, "so that's suitable enough."

"'Address?The Monumental Studio, Michael Angelo House, Great Brunswick.

Street, Dublin,'" read Father McCormack. "That'll be where your nephew lives, Mr. Doyle?"

"It's where he has his works," said Doyle. "He lives down near Sandymount."

"'Celtic Crosses, Obelisks and every kind of Monument supplied at the shortest notice,'" said Father McCormack, still reading from the card. "'Family Vaults decorated. Inscriptions Cut. Estimates Free. Low Prices'."

"I don't see that we could possibly do better than that," said Dr.

O'Grady.

"Even Doyle's nephew can't make a statue in ten days," said the Major.

"He says 'shortest notice' on his card. You ought to believe the man, Major, until you've some evidence that he's a liar."

"I don't care what he says," said the Major. "He can't make a statue in ten days."

"We'll get to that point in a minute," said Dr. O'Grady. "The first thing we have to decide is whether Mr. Aloysius Doyle is a suitable man to be entrusted with the work."

"There's no other tenders before us," said Father McCormack, "so I suppose we may as well??"

"Excuse my interrupting you, Father," said Doyle, "but before you take the opinion of the meeting on this point, I'd like to say that I'm offering no opinion one way or the other; and what's more I won't give a vote either for or against. I wouldn't like to do it in a case where my own nephew is a candidate."

"You needn't tell us that, Mr. Doyle," said Father McCormack. "We all know that you're not the kind of man who'd be using his public position to further the interests of his relatives. What do you say now, gentlemen? Is Mr. Aloysius Doyle to be given the contract for the statue or not? What do you say, Major?"

"If he can make a full-sized statue of a General in ten days," said the Major, "he's a man who deserves every encouragement we can give him."

"Now, doctor," said Father McCormack, "what's your opinion?"

"I'm for giving him the job," said the Doctor.

"Mr. Doyle won't vote," said Father McCormack.