George A. Birmingham

“ Cahoon has the mind of a statesman, and in his opinion something will have to be done to soothe the Dublin public. A first-rate Viceregal establishment was his idea. However, we needn’t go into details. The main thing is that we want a Lord Lieutenant. If your Government undertakes to supply suitable men from time to time I think I may promise that we’ll find the money. Write that down, Godfrey.”
“When you speak of the English clearing out of Ireland,” said Clithering, “and leaving you the country to yourselves, you don’t of course mean absolute fiscal independence.” ”

“ There’s only one daughter, so he can hardly offer less than forty thou.”
I fully intended to tell Godfrey what I thought of him; but words were not easy to find. I was still searching for a noun to go along with “damnable” when Clithering came back. He seemed greatly excited.
“The Prime Minister,” he blurted out, “is quite ready— He says he has no objection— In fact it’s what we’ve been trying to do all along. Our Home Rule Bill was simply an attempt—”
“Do try to be coherent,” I said. “What did the Prime Minister say?”
“He said we’d leave Ireland with the greatest pleasure,” said Clithering. ”

“ Godfrey winced. I do not wonder. The future Lady Kilmore must, of course, wear stockings, but it is not pleasant for Godfrey to think of her supply coming straight from the paternal factory.
“The Irish trade,” said Clithering, “is not among the most remunerative, but—”
“We can only afford to wear the cheaper sorts,” I said; “and a great many of us can’t buy any at all. I don’t think you need bother about the Irish trade.”
“Still, it is substantial. Now, a hostile tariff—or a bounty on Balbriggan—”
“You’ll have to establish a factory in Ireland,” I said, “and dodge the tariff. ”

“ One statue is rather a poor bag for the British Fleet. The people are proud of their navy. They’ve spent a lot of money on it, and they won’t like being told that it has hit nothing but a statue, after a long morning’s shooting. ”

“ Lady Moyne had been one of the original syndicate which, so to speak, placed our insurrection on the market. Her house was therefore friendly soil for me. She had afterwards disassociated herself, more or less, from Conroy and McNeice; while Moyne had been trying for two days to surrender himself. The Prime Minister’s ambassador could therefore go to Moyne House without loss of dignity.
Clithering brought my nephew Godfrey with him.
“Mr. D’Aubigny,” he said, “is acting for the present as one of my private secretaries.”
Clithering is a man who accumulates private secretaries rapidly. ”

“ The Government—I mean, of course, so far as Ulster is concerned, the late Government—your Government—must either conduct the war in a proper business-like way—have you got that down, Godfrey?”
“Do you mean,” said Clithering, “that you want us—?”
“I mean,” I said, “that we have put our money into it. Conroy, in particular, has spent huge sums on cannons. We are determined to have a show of some sort. Your Government must therefore either agree to fight properly and not keep running away every time we get a shot in, or—”
“Yes,” said Clithering, “go on.” ”

“ They still—and I am writing several months after the new Irish Government has been firmly established—congratulate each other on the way in which the third Home Rule Bill was defeated by the unfaltering attitude of the Ulster Loyalists.
Godfrey, I regret to say, failed to marry Miss Clithering. She took a violent dislike to him after he had spent three weeks in her father’s house. Not even the prospect of becoming Lady Kilmore would reconcile her to the marriage. ”

“ I said, “that the Lord Lieutenant with the purely ornamental part of the Viceregal staff is to be allowed to remain on the condition that he gives—shall we say eight balls and eight dinner-parties every year?—and that every other Englishman leaves the country at once. ”

“ Clithering went on, “to take notes of our conversation. I thought that you would prefer him to a stranger.”
I should very much have preferred the young man from Toynbee Hall who escorted Marion to the cathedral. I should, in fact, have preferred any other private secretary. ”