e said. "But I found the
bottle."

"If you were three years older," said Doyle, "I'd give you a drop for
your trouble. But it wouldn't be good for you, Michael Antony, and your
mother wouldn't be pleased if she heard you were taking it."

"I have the pledge since Christmas, anyway," said Michael Antony.

"Thady," said Doyle, when the boy had left the room, "it's a drink you
want to quench the rage that's in you."

Gallagher looked up from his papers. He did not say anything, but
Doyle understood exactly what he would have said if his pride had not
prevented him from speaking.

"The width of two fingers in the bottom of the tumbler," said Doyle,
"with as much water on top of that as would leave you free to say that
you weren't drinking it plain."

The amount of water necessary to soothe Gallagher's conscience was very
small. Doyle added it from the jug in driblets of about a teaspoonful
at a time. At the sound of the third splash Gallagher raised his hand.
Doyle laid down the jug at once. Gallagher, without looking up from his
papers, stretched out his left hand and felt about until he grasped the
tumbler. He raised it to his lips and took a mouthful of whisky.

"Thady," said Doyle, "you've no great liking for Mr. Ford."

"I have not," said Gallagher. "Isn't he always going against me at the
Petty Sessions, he and the old Major together, and treating me as if I
wasn't a magistrate the same as the best of them?"

"He does that, and it's a crying shame, so it is, that he's allowed to;
but sure that's the way things are in this country."

Gallagher took another gulp of whisky and waited. Doyle said nothing
more. He appeared to have nothing more to say and to have mentioned Mr.
Ford's name merely for the sake of making conversation. But Gallagher
wished to develop the subject.

"What about Mr. Ford?" he said, after a long silence.

"He's terrible down on the erection of the statue to General John
Regan."

"I'm that myself," said Gallagher.

"Mr. Ford will be pleased when he hears it; for there'll be no statue if
you set your face against it. It'll be then that Mr. Ford will be proud
of himself. He'll be saying all round the Country that it was him put a
stop to it."

"It will not be him that put a stop to it."

"It's what he'll say, anyway," said Doyle.

Gallagher finished his whisky in two large gulps.

"Let him," he said.

"Have another drop," said Doyle. "It's doing you good."

Gallagher pushed h