Dail in Dublin. "Are the Irish
people, who honor great gamblers only a little less than great poets,
to be outdone by dark-skinned heathen? Mr. Speaker, I say _no_!"

The following morning, the government of Eire formally offered to toss
for the Six Lost Counties and, if the coin fell contrary, to say no more
about them forever. Belfast agreed that same afternoon, and the whole
island went wild with excitement. Hardly any Irishman failed to place
some kind of side bet on the outcome, and stakes were laid that day that
would be spoken of with prideful awe for generations to come.

The remark of a Limerick drayman was widely quoted. "There's not a man
of us here," he commented in the course of a game of darts at the Sword
and Shamrock, "but would toss a coin for his grandmother's head, and
well ye know it. So after all the blatherin' and yowrin', why not have a
go for the Six Counties, and let the coin decide it now and foriver,
once and for all, win or lose?"

The British Government surrendered with grace, and offered to play host
to the toss in London, as a neutral place. They soon learned, with
burning ears, that the last place on earth any Irishman considered
neutral was London.

As a matter of course, General O'Reilly was invited to preside, using
the Golden Judge. Like most Irishmen in America, he had long sung of and
sighed for the Auld Sod, while carefully avoiding going there, even for
a visit.

He now realized his error. He was received as one of Ireland's most
glorious sons. He was set upon by thousands, perhaps hundreds of
thousands, of proud O'Reillys--there were O'Reillys from the bogs and
O'Reillys from the great houses, O'Reillys in tophats and O'Reillys in
tam o' shanter. He was assured, and came near believing it, that in both
looks and wisdom, he was the spitting image of the Great O'Reilly, one
of the many last rightful Kings of Ireland. A minstrel composed a lay
about him, "The Golden Judge of Ireland"; he was smothered in shamrock,
and could have swum in the gifts of potheen. Secretly he much preferred
Scotch whisky to Irish, but the swarming O'Reillys made the disposal of
the potheen no very great problem.

* * * * *

The actual toss took place in a small railroad station, hastily cleaned
up, on the railway line between Dublin and Belfast. Impartial surveyors
had certified it as being exactly astraddle the frontier.

Amid a deathlike hush, with a high sense of history i