and might be wanting help."

"It's little help you'd give her if she was wanting it, you with your
cap on your ear, instead of the top of your head, and your apron like a
wrung dishclout I wonder you're not ashamed to be seen. Get along with
you down to the kitchen and stay there. Anything that's wanted for her
ladyship I'll do myself."

Lady Devereux was in her morning room, a pleasant sunny apartment which
looked out on the square. The day was warm, but Lady Devereux was an old
woman. She sat in front of a bright fire. She sat in a very deep
soft chair with her feet on a footstool. She had a pile of papers and
magazines on a little table beside her. She neither stirred nor looked
up when Mrs. O'Halloran entered the room.

"Molly," she said, "I heard some men talking in the hall. I wish they
wouldn't make so much noise."

Mrs. O'Halloran cleared her throat and coughed. Lady Devereux looked up.

"Oh," she said, "it's not Molly. It's you, Mrs. O'Halloran. Then I
suppose it must be plumbers."

The inference was a natural one. Mrs. O'Halloran always dealt with
plumbers when they came. She was the only person in the house who could
deal with plumbers.

"Or perhaps some men about the gas," said Lady Devereux. "I hope they
won't want to come in here."

The pleasant quiet life in Lady Devereux' house was occasionally
broken by visits from plumbers and gas men. No one, however wealthy or
easygoing, can altogether escape the evils which have grown up with our
civilization.

"It's not plumbers, my lady," said Mrs. O'Halloran, "nor it isn't gas
men. It's Sinn Feiners."

"Dear me, I suppose they want a subscription. My purse is on my writing
table, Mrs. O'Halloran. Will five shillings be enough? I think I ought
to give them something. I'm always so sorry for people who have to go
round from house to house collecting."

"I have the three of them in the cloakroom downstairs and the key turned
on them," said Mrs. O'Halloran.

It is quite possible that Lady Devereux might have expressed some
surprise at this drastic way of treating men, presumably well-meaning
men, who came to ask for money. Before she spoke again she was startled
by the sound of several rifle shots fired in the street outside her
house. She was not much startled, not at all alarmed. A rifle fired in
the open air at some distance does not make a very terrifying sound.

"Dear me," she said, "I wonder what that is. It sounds very like
somebody shooting.