ally optimistic
temper. He had lived in Ireland all his life, and he had a profound
belief in the happening of unexpected things.

On September the tenth the Wolfe Tone Republicans made a most
distressing discovery.

Six months before, they had lent their band instruments to the Thomas
Emmet Club, an important association of Nationalists in the neighbouring
village.

The Thomas Emmets, faced with a demand for the return of the
instruments, confessed that they had lent them to the Martyred
Archbishops' branch of the Gaelic League. They, in turn, had lent them
to the Manchester Martyrs' Gaelic Football Association. These
athletes would, no doubt, have returned the instruments honestly; but
unfortunately their association had been suppressed by the Government
six weeks earlier and had only just been re-formed as the Irish Ireland
National Brotherhood.

In the process of dissolution and reincarnation the band instruments
had disappeared. No one knew where they were. The only suggestion
the footballers had to make was that the police had taken them when
suppressing the Manchester Martyrs. This seemed probable, and the
members of the Wolfe Tone Republican Club asked their president, Mr.
Cornelius O'Farrelly, to call on Mr. Hinde and inquire into the matter.

Mr. Hinde was surprised, very agreeably surprised, at receiving a visit
one evening from the president of the Republican Club. In Ireland,
leading politicians, whatever school they belong to, are seldom on
friendly terms with the police. He greeted O'Farrelly warmly.

"What I was wishing to speak to you about was this--" O'Farrelly began.

"Fill your pipe before you begin talking," said Mr. Hinde. "Here's some
tobacco." He offered his pouch as he spoke. "I wish I could offer you a
drink; but there's no whisky to be got nowadays."

"I know that," said O'Farrelly in a friendly tone, "and what's more, I
know you'd offer it to me if you had it."

He filled his pipe and lit it. Then he began again: "What I was wishing
to speak to you about is the band instruments."

"If you want a subscription--" said Hinde.

"I do not want any subscription."

"That's just as well, for you wouldn't get it if you did. I've no money,
for one thing; and besides it wouldn't suit a man in my position to be
subscribing to rebel bands."

"I wouldn't ask you," said O'Farrelly. "Don't I know as well as yourself
that it would be no use? And anyway it isn't the money we want, but our
own