s on a coming crisis. When I told him I would
drop in again to hear the decision, he protested that they would be at it
till late. On my counter protest that time made no difference to me, he
promised that if I would not come he would send me word at eleven that
night. "But I think," he added, "we won't know till morning."

At ten that night, Boots knocked at my door. I concluded that there had
been a stampeded decision. But on going out I discovered the Associated
Press correspondent there. He told me that he heard that I was to receive
the news and that he did not believe that there was any necessity of
bothering the Sinn Feiners twice for the same decision.

"I think the reception is quite likely," he volunteered. "This afternoon a
good many of the Sinn Fein army were at University chapel at confession. At
the girls' hostels of National University--which is regarded as a sort of
adolescent Sinn Fein headquarters--there have been strict orders that the
girls are to remain indoors tomorrow night."

When the messenger arrived at eleven to say that no decision had been
reached, I made an appointment for an interview on the following day with
DeValera.

Electricity was in the air by morning. There were all sorts of sparks.
Young men in civilian clothes ran for trams with their hands over their hip
pockets. A delightful girl whom I had met, boarded my car with a heavy
parcel in her hands. As the British officer next me rose to give her his
seat, her cheeks became very pink. Sometime later she told me that, like
the rest of the Sinn Fein volunteers, she had received her mobilization
orders, and that the parcel the officer had relented for was--her rifle.

At that time, her division of the woman's section of the Sinn Fein
volunteers was pressing a plan for the holding of the reception. In order,
however, that no needed fighters would be killed, the girls had asked that
they should be first to meet the president. Then, when the machine guns
commenced, "only girls" would fall.

Into College Green a brute of a tank had cruised. The man in charge was
inviting people to have a look. Inside there were red-lipped munition
boxes, provender cases, and through the skewer-sized sight-holes next the
jutting guns, there were glimpses of shoppers emerging from Grafton street
into the Green. Over the city, against the silver-rimmed, Irish gray
clouds, aeroplanes--there were sixteen in one formation--buzzed
insistently. Between the lit