Protestant, with strong
anti-Papal convictions, and therefore was not, it might have been
supposed, a good man to advise a priest on a delicate question of
ecclesiastical etiquette. But the Major was eminently respectable, and
his outlook upon life was staidly conservative. Father McCormack felt
that if Major Kent thoroughly approved of the erection of a statue to
General John Regan it was likely to be quite a proper thing to do.

"I'm not sure," said Father McCormack, "whether it will suit me to take
the chair at this meeting the doctor's getting up or not. I'm not sure,
I say. Can you tell me now, Major Kent, who's this American gentleman
they're all talking about?"

"I don't know anything about him," said the Major, "but I'm bound to
say he looks like a Protestant. I don't know whether that will make any
difference to you or not."

"From the little I've seen of him--just across the street from the window
of the Presbytery--I'd say you were right about his religion, but I
needn't tell you, Major Kent, that I'm not a bigoted man. It wouldn't
stop me taking the chair if he was a Protestant. It wouldn't stop me
if he was a Presbyterian, and I can't say more than that. You know very
well that I'd just as soon be sitting on a committee alongside of a
Protestant as any ordinary kind of man. I'm not one that would let
religion interfere too much."

"He seems quite respectable," said the Major. "He's been here three days
now, and I never saw him drunk."

"It's not that either that's troubling me," said Father McCormack.
"There's many a man gets drunk when he can, and I'd be the last to make
too much out of that."

"I can't tell you any more about him," said the Major, "for that's all I
know, except that he appears to be rich."

"The difficulty I'm in is on account of the bishop. He's getting to be
mighty particular. I don't say he's wrong, mind you; only there it
is. But sure, if no one in the place has anything to say against the
American gentleman it's likely he'll turn out to be all right. But what
about the fellow they want to put up the statue to?"

"General John Regan," said the Major.

"What about him? I never heard tell of him before."

"For the matter of that, nor did I."

"Who was he at all?"

"You'll have to ask Dr. O'Grady that. He's the only man who professes to
know anything about him."

"As I was saying to you this minute," said Father McCormack, "I wouldn't
mind if he was a Protestant."

"H