only poor slovenly useless devils
like yourself. [Dropping his voice like a man making some
shameful confidence] And all the while there goes on a horrible,
senseless, mischievous laughter. When you're young, you exchange
drinks with other young men; and you exchange vile stories with
them; and as you're too futile to be able to help or cheer them,
you chaff and sneer and taunt them for not doing the things you
daren't do yourself. And all the time you laugh, laugh, laugh!
eternal derision, eternal envy, eternal folly, eternal fouling
and staining and degrading, until, when you come at last to a
country where men take a question seriously and give a serious
answer to it, you deride them for having no sense of humor, and
plume yourself on your own worthlessness as if it made you better
than them.

BROADBENT [roused to intense earnestness by Doyle's eloquence].
Never despair, Larry. There are great possibilities for Ireland.
Home Rule will work wonders under English guidance.

DOYLE [pulled up short, his face twitching with a reluctant
smile]. Tom: why do you select my most tragic moments for your
most irresistible strokes of humor?

BROADBENT. Humor! I was perfectly serious. What do you mean? Do
you doubt my seriousness about Home Rule?

DOYLE. I am sure you are serious, Tom, about the English guidance.

BROADBENT [quite reassured]. Of course I am. Our guidance is the
important thing. We English must place our capacity for government
without stint at the service of nations who are less fortunately
endowed in that respect; so as to allow them to develop in perfect
freedom to the English level of self-government, you know. You
understand me?

DOYLE. Perfectly. And Rosscullen will understand you too.

BROADBENT [cheerfully]. Of course it will. So that's all right.
[He pulls up his chair and settles himself comfortably to lecture
Doyle]. Now, Larry, I've listened carefully to all you've said
about Ireland; and I can see nothing whatever to prevent your
coming with me. What does it all come to? Simply that you were
only a young fellow when you were in Ireland. You'll find all
that chaffing and drinking and not knowing what to be at in
Peckham just the same as in Donnybrook. You looked at Ireland
with a boy's eyes and saw only boyish things. Come back with me
and look at it with a man's, and get a better opinion of your
country.

DOYLE. I daresay you're partly right in that: at all events I
know very well that if