is difficult to bridle thought.
After walking half a mile in silence Dr. O'Grady spoke again, and his
words showed that his mind was still working on the same problem.

"Americans have far too good an opinion of themselves," he said.
"Billing may possibly think he's playing some kind of trick on us. He
may be laughing at us in some way we don't quite understand."

"I don't know whether he's laughing or not," said the Major, "but
everybody else will be very soon if you go on as you're going."

CHAPTER VI

It is very difficult to do anything of importance to the community
without holding a public meeting about it. In Ireland people have got so
accustomed to oratory and the resolutions which are the immediate excuse
for oratory, that public meetings are absolutely necessary preliminaries
to any enterprise. This is the case in all four provinces, which is
one of the things which goes to show that the Irish are really a single
people and not two or three different peoples, as some writers assert.
The hard-headed, commercially-minded Ulsterman is just as fond of public
meetings as the Connacht Celt. He would hold them, with drums and full
dress speechifying, even if he were organising a secret society and
arranging for a rebellion. He is perfectly right. Without a public
meeting it would be impossible to enrol any large number of members for
a society.

Dr. O'Grady, having lived all his life in Ireland, and being on most
intimate terms with his neighbours, understood this law. He also
understood that in order to make a success of a public meeting in
Connacht and therefore to further the enterprise on hand, it is
necessary that the parish priest should take the chair and advisable
that a Member of Parliament should propose the first resolution.

He began by sending Doyle to Father McCormack. Doyle, foreseeing a
possible profit for himself, did his best to persuade Father McCormack
to take the chair. Father McCormack, who was a fat man and therefore
good-natured, did not want to refuse Doyle. But Father McCormack was
not a free agent. Behind him, somewhere, was a bishop, reputed to be
austere, certainly domineering. Father McCormack was very much afraid
of the bishop, therefore he hesitated. The most that Doyle could secure,
after a long interview, was the promise of a definite answer the next
day.

Father McCormack made use of the twenty-four hours' grace he had secured
by calling on Major Kent. The Major was a