Ireland
is a country of unblushing self-contradictions; but I do not think
that the truth of this ever came home to me quite so forcibly as when
I read _The Loyalist_ that it would be better, if necessary, to
imitate the Boers and shoot down regiments of British soldiers than to
be false to the Empire of which "it is our proudest boast that we are
citizens." The editor--such was the conclusion I arrived at--must be a
humorist of a high order.

His name was Diarmid O'Donovan and he always wrote it in Irish
characters, which used to puzzle me at first when I got into
correspondence with him. We found him in a small room at the top of a
house in a side street of a singularly depressing kind.

McNeice explained to me that _The Loyalist_ did not court notoriety,
and preferred to have an office which was, as far as possible, out of
sight. He said that O'Donovan was particularly anxious to be
unobtrusive. He had, before he became connected with _The Loyalist_,
been editor of two papers which had been suppressed by the Government
for advocating what the Litany calls "sedition and privy conspiracy."
He held, very naturally, that a paper would get on better in the world
if it had no office at all. If that was impossible, the office should
be an attic in an inaccessible slum.

O'Donovan, when we entered, was seated at a table writing vigorously.
I do not know how he managed to write at all. His table was covered
with stacks of newspapers, very dusty. He had cleared a small, a very
small space in the middle of them, and his ink-bottle occupied a kind
of cave hollowed out at the base of one of the stacks. It must have
been extremely difficult to put a pen into it. The chairs--there were
only two of them besides the editorial stool--were also covered with
papers. But even if they had been free I should not have cared to sit
down on them. They were exceedingly dirty and did not look safe.

McNeice introduced me and then produced his own article. O'Donovan,
very politely, offered me his stool.

"McNeice tells me," he said, "that you are writing a history of Irish
Rebellions. I suppose you have said that Nationalism ceased to exist
about the year 1900?"

"I hadn't thought of saying that," I said. "In fact--in view of the
Home Rule Bill, you know--I should have said that Irish Nationalism
was just beginning to come to its own."

O'Donovan snorted.

"There's no such thing as Irish Nationalism left," he said. "The
country is hy