on that head."

"The whole country is organized," said the head-centre; "we could put
three hundred thousand men in the field at any time in a fortnight. The
movement is not sectarian; it pervades all classes and all creeds. All
that we want are officers and arms."

"Hem!" said the general; "and as to your other supplies? Any scheme of
commissariat?"

"There will be no lack of means," replied the head-centre. "There is no
country where so much money is hoarded as in Ireland. But, depend
upon it, so far as the commissariat is concerned, the movement will be
self-supporting."

"Well, we shall see," said, the general; "I am sorry it is an Irish
affair, though, to be sure, what else could it be? I am not fond of
Irish affairs: whatever may be said, and however plausible things may
look, in an Irish business there is always a priest at the bottom of it.
I hate priests. By-the-by, I was stopped on my way here by a cardinal
getting into his carriage. I thought I had burnt all those vehicles when
I was at Rome with Garibaldi in '48. A cardinal in his carriage! I had
no idea you permitted that sort of cattle in London."

"London is a roost for every bird," said Felix Drolin.

"Very few of the priests favor this movement," said Desmond.

"Then you have a great power against you," said the general, in
"addition to England."

"They are not exactly against; the bulk of them are too national for
that; but Rome does not sanction--you understand?"

"I understand enough," said the general, "to see that we must not act
with precipitation. An Irish business is a thing to be turned over
several times."

"But yet," said a Pole, "what hope for humanity except from the rising
of an oppressed nationality? We have offered ourselves on the altar,
and in vain! Greece is too small, and Roumania--though both of them
are ready to do any thing; but they would be the mere tools of Russia.
Ireland alone remains, and she is at our feet."

"The peoples will never succeed until they have a fleet," said a German.
"Then you could land as many rifles as you like, or any thing else. To
have a fleet we rose against Denmark in my country, but we have been
betrayed. Nevertheless, Germany will yet be united, and she can only be
united as a republic. Then she will be the mistress of the seas."

"That is the mission of Italy," said Perroni. "Italy--with the
traditions of Genoa, Venice, Pisa--Italy is plainly indicated as the
future mistress of the s