imonials signed by professors,
tutors, surgeons, and doctors, all eloquent about the knowledge, skill,
and personal integrity of one Theophilus Lovaway. Dr. Farelly stuffed
these into his pocket. He had often written testimonials himself--in
Ireland everyone writes them in scores--and he knew precisely what they
were worth. He came at last to a letter, very neatly typewritten. It
began formally:

"Dear Sir--I beg to offer myself as a candidate for the post of medical
officer, temporary, for the town and district of Dunailin, on the terms
of your advertisement in _The British Medical Journal_."

Dr. Farelly, like the Etruscans in Macaulay's poem, "could scare forbear
to cheer." He walked jauntily back to his house, relit his pipe and sat
down to read the rest of the letter.

Theophilus Lovaway was apparently a garrulous person. He had covered
four sheets with close typescript. He began by stating that he was
only just qualified and had never practised anywhere. He hoped that Dr.
Farelly would not consider his want of experience a disqualification.
Dr. Farelly did not care in the least.

If Theophilus Lovaway was legally qualified to write prescriptions,
nothing else mattered. The next three paragraphs of the letter--and they
were all long--described, in detail, the condition of Lovaway's health.
He suffered, it appeared, from a disordered heart, weak lungs, and
dyspepsia. But for these misfortunes, the letter went on, Theophilus
would have devoted himself to the services of his country in her great
need. Dr. Farelly sniffed. He had a prejudice against people who wrote
or talked in that way. He began to feel less cheerful. Theophilus might
come to Dunailin. It was very doubtful whether he would stay there long,
his lungs, heart, and stomach being what they were.

The last half of the letter was painfully disconcerting. Two whole pages
were devoted to an explanation of the writer's wish to spend some time
in the west of Ireland. Theophilus Lovaway had managed, in the middle
of his professional reading, to study the literature of the Irish
Renaissance. He had fallen deeply in love with the spirit of the Celtic
peasantry. He described at some length what he thought that spirit
was. "Tuned to the spiritual" was one of the phrases he used.
"Desire-compelling, with the elusiveness of the rainbow's end," was
another. Dr. Farelly grew despondent. If Theophilus expected life in
Dunailin to be in the least like one of Mr. Yeat