He went on deck. Soon _The McMunn Brothers_ was under way.

Lord Dunseverick looked at the prostrate Von Edelstein.

"What are we going to do with him?" he asked.

"Drown him," said McMunn.

A trickle of blood was running down Von Edelstein's chin. He spat out
some fragments of broken teeth.

"It appears," he said, "that I have made a mistake about your
intentions."

"You've offered an outrageous insult to loyal men," said McMunn.

"A mistake," said Von Edelstein, "but surely excusable. I have in my
pocket at the present moment--would you be so kind as to feel in my
breast pocket? You'll find some papers there, and a newspaper cutting
among them."

Lord Dunseverick slipped his hand into the prisoner's pocket. He drew
out a number of letters and a newspaper cutting. It was a report, taken
from the _Belfast News Letter_, of the speech which he had made at
Ballymena a fortnight before. He had proclaimed the Kaiser the deliverer
of Ulster. His own words stared him in the face. McMunn took the cutting
and glanced at it. He thumped his fist on the table.

"I stand by every word of it," he said. "We will not have Home Rule."

"You are a curious people," said Von Edelstein. "I thought--and even now
you say----"

"That speech," said McMunn, "was made for an entirely different purpose.
If you thought that we wanted a German Army in Ulster, or that we meant
to fire on the British flag----"

"It is exactly what I did think," said Von Edelstein.

"You're a born fool, then," said McMunn.

"Perhaps," said Lord Dunseverick, "we ought not to drown him. Suppose we
take him home, and hand him over to the Ulster Provisional Government?"

"I wish you would," said Von Edelstein, "I am a student of human nature.
I should greatly like to meet your Ulster Government."

"You'll maybe not like it so much when they hang you," said McMunn, "and
it's what they'll do."

XI ~~ SIR TIMOTHY'S DINNER-PARTY

Mr. Courtney, the R.M., was a man of ideas, and prided himself on his
sympathy with progress, the advance of thought, and similar delights. If
he had been thirty years younger, and had lived in Dublin, he would have
been classed among the "Intellectuals." He would then have written a
gloomy play or two, several poems and an essay, published at a shilling,
in a green paper cover, on the "Civilization of the Future." Being,
unfortunately, fifty-five years of age, he could not write poetry
or gloomy plays. Nobody can after t