e machine can make a man look as foolish as he feels when,
elaborately dressed in evening clothes, he is suddenly set down on
a sunny lawn in the middle of a group of people suitably attired for
tennis. Sir Archibald, puzzled and annoyed, turned to Mr. Courtney with
a frown.

"He said half-past seven," said Mr. Courtney.

"I'm delighted to see you now or at any time, but, as a matter of fact,
it's only half-past five," said Sir Timothy.

Sir Archibald looked at his watch.

"It's--surely my watch can't have gained two hours?"

"It's half-past seven," said Mr. Courtney, firmly.

"Oh, no it isn't," said Sir Timothy. "I don't dine by Act of
Parliament."

Sir Archibald frowned angrily.

"We'd better go home again," he said. "We mustn't interrupt the tennis."

He climbed stiffly into the motor.

"I suppose," he said to Mr. Courtney a few minutes later, "that this is
some kind of Irish joke."

Mr. Courtney explained, elaborately and fully, Sir Timothy's peculiar
views about time.

"If I'd known," said Sir Archibald, "that you were taking me to dine
with a lunatic, I should not have agreed to go."

Mr. Courtney recognized that his chances of promotion to a pleasant
post in Dublin had vanished. The Irish Government had no use for men who
place their superiors in embarrassing positions.

XII ~~ UNITED IRELAND

"I'll say this for old MacManaway, an honester man never lived nor what
he was; and I'm sorry he's gone, so I am."

The speaker was Dan Gallaher. The occasion was the morning of the
auction of old MacManaway's property. The place was the yard behind the
farmhouse in which MacManaway had lived, a solitary man, without wife or
child, for fifty years. Dan Gallaher held the hames of a set of harness
in his hand as he spoke and critically examined the leather of the
traces. It was good leather, sound and well preserved. Old MacManaway
while alive liked sound things and took good care of his property.

"An honester man never lived," Dan repeated "And I'm not saying that
because the old man and me agreed together, for we didn't."

"How could you agree?" said James McNiece. "It wasn't to be expected
that you would agree. There wasn't a stronger Protestant nor a greater
Orangeman in the whole country nor old MacManaway."

James McNiece turned from the examination of a cart as he spoke and gave
his attention to the hames. His description of the dead man's religious
and political convictions was just. No