'Grady. "What's the good of raking
up the past? What we've got to do now is to find a way out of the
confounded hole we've been let into through your incompetence and
carelessness."

"I'm down for L5," said the Major, "and I'll consider that I'm very
well out of this business if I have to pay no more. I'd rather give five
pounds any day than stand by watching Mary Ellen and the Lord-Lieutenant
making faces at a second-hand statue."

"It's a handsome offer, so it is," said Father McCormack, "and the
thanks of the meeting----"

"I'll not pay a penny," said Doyle, "and what's more, if the doctor
doesn't pay me what he owes me I'll put him into the County Court."

"It's you that'll have to pay," said Gallagher, "whether you like it or
not."

"I'm damned if I do," said Doyle.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," said Father McCormack, "will you mind what
you're saying? That's no language to be using, Mr. Doyle; and I don't
think the doctor has any right--not that I mind myself what you say for
I'm not particular; but if it was to get out to the ears of the general
public that this meeting had been conducting itself in ways that's very
far from being reputable----"

"There's no general public here," said Dr. O'Grady, "and that's just as
well."

"What I'm trying to tell you," said Father McCormack, "and what I would
tell you if you'd listen to me, is that there's somebody knocking at the
door of the room we're in and whoever it is must have heard every word
that's been said this last five minutes."

Doyle and Gallagher stopped growling at each other when the priest
spoke. Dr. O'Grady sat upright in his chair and bent his head towards
the door. There was a moment's silence in the room and a very faint, as
it were an apologetic, knock was heard at the door.

"Come in," said Dr. O'Grady.

Mary Ellen opened the door and looked in. She appeared to be rather
frightened. If, as Father McCormack supposed she heard every word spoken
during the previous five minutes, she had very good reason for feeling
nervous. She had a still better reason a moment later when Doyle caught
sight of her. Doyle had completely lost command of his temper.

"Get away out of that, Mary Ellen," he said, "and if I catch sight of
you here again before I call for you I'll have the two ears cut off you
and yourself sent home to your mother with them in a paper parcel in the
well of the car."

Curiously enough this appalling threat seemed to cheer Mary Ellen