John Regan? For I never heard tell of him."

"It'll be better for you, Thady, to know something about him be the same more or less, before the gentleman within has finished his dinner. He'll be asking questions of you the whole of the rest of the day."

"Let him ask."

"And you'll have to be answering him, for he'll not rest contented without you do."

"There's no Regans here," said Gallagher, "and what's more there never was."

"There's no statue anyway," said Doyle, "nor there won't be."

"I don't know that there'd be any harm in a statue," said Gallagher. "What has me bothered is who the General was."

"There'll be no statue," said Doyle. "It's all very well to be talking, but the rates is too high already without an extra penny in the pound for a statue that nobody wants."

"I wouldn't be in favour of a statue myself," said Gallagher, "unless, of course, the gentleman was to pay for it himself, and he might."

"Of course if he was to pay for it, it would be different. By the look of the motor-car he came in I'd say he'd plenty of money."

The idea that Mr. Billing could pay for a statue was a pleasant one, and it was always possible that he might do so. He appeared to be very anxious that there should be a statue.

"There's some men," said Doyle hopefully, "that has no sense in the way they spend what money they've got."

Mr. Gallagher admitted with a sigh that there are such men. He himself had no money, or very little. If, as he hoped, he succeeded in becoming a Member of Parliament, he would have money, large quantities of it, a full £400 a year. He would have more sense than to spend any of it in erecting statues. Doyle, on the other hand, had money. He lent it freely, at a high rate of interest, to the other inhabitants of Ballymoy. This was his idea of the proper use of money. To spend it on works of public utility or sentimental value, struck him as very foolish.

"I'd be glad, all the same," said Gallagher, "if I knew who the General was that he's talking about."

"It could be," said Doyle hopefully, "that he was one of them ones that fought against the Government at the time of Wolfe Tone."

"He might, of course. But the gentleman was saying something about Bolivia."

"Where's that at all?" said Doyle.

Thady Gallagher did not know. Editors of newspapers are supposed to know everything and have succeeded in impressing the public with the idea that they do, but there are probably a few things about which even the ablest editor has to refer to encyclopedias; and Gallagher was not by any means at the top of his profession. The Connacht Eagle was indeed a paper which exercised a very great influence on the minds of those who read it, more influence, perhaps, than even The Times has on its subscribers. For the readers of Gallagher's leading articles and columns of news were still in that primitive stage of culture in which every statement made in print is accepted as certainly true, whereas the subscribers to The Times have been educated into an unworthy kind of scepticism. Also the readers of the Connacht Eagle read little or nothing else, while those who read The Times usually glance at one or two other papers as well, and even waste their time and unsettle their minds by dipping into books. Thus, in spite of the fact that The Times appears every day, and the Connacht Eagle only once a week, it is likely that the Irish paper exercises more real influence than the English one—produces, that is to say, more definite effect upon the opinions of men who have votes. The editor of The Times would perhaps scarcely recognise Thady Gallagher as a fellow journalist. He may know—would probably in any case be ashamed to admit that he did not know—where Bolivia is. Thady Gallagher did not know, and was prepared to confess his ignorance in private to his friend. Yet Gallagher was in reality the more important man of the two.

"I know as much about Bolivia," he said, "as I do about the General, and that's nothing at all."

"I'm glad it's you and not me," said Doyle, "that he took the fancy to go out walking with."

"I suppose now," said Gallagher, "that you wouldn't come along with us."

"I will not," said Doyle, "so you may make your mind easy about that."

"I don't see what harm it would do you."

"I've things to look after," said Doyle, "and anyway I don't fancy spending my time talking about a dead General that nobody ever heard of."

"It's what I feel myself," said Gallagher.

"You may feel it," said Doyle, "but you'll have to go with him. It was you he asked and not me."