pass him
in if the circumstances were explained to them. By the way, it would be
rather funny if he met the other nine out there on a kopje, wouldn't it?
He might take them prisoners, or they might capture him. Either way the
situation would have its comic possibilities.'

CHAPTER XI

Miss Goold lived that part of her life which was not spent at political
meetings or in the office of the _Croppy_ in a villa at Killiney. A
house agent would have described it as a most desirable residence,
standing in its own grounds, overlooking the sea. Its windows opened
upon one of the best of the many beautiful views of Dublin Bay. Its
half-acre of pleasure ground--attended to by a jobbing gardener once a
week--was trim and flowery. Its brown gate shone with frequently renewed
paint, and the drive up to the door was neatly raked. Inside
Miss Goold's wants were ministered to by an eminently respectable
man-servant, his wife who cooked, and a maid. The married couple were
fixtures, and had been with Miss Goold since she started housekeeping.
The maids varied. They never quarrelled with their mistress, but they
found it impossible to live with their fellow-servants. Mr. and Mrs.
Ginty were North of Ireland Protestants of the severest type. Ginty
himself was a strong Orangeman, and his wife professed and enforced a
strict code of morals. It did not in the least vex Miss Goold to
know that her servants' quarters were decorated with portraits of the
reigning family in gilt frames, or that King William III. pranced on a
white charger above the kitchen range. Nor had she any objection to her
butler invoking a nightly malediction on the Pope over his tumbler of
whisky-and-water. Unfortunately, her maids--the first three were Roman
Catholics--found that their religious convictions were outraged, and
left, after stormy scenes. The red-haired Protestant from the North who
followed them was indifferent to the eternal destiny of Leo XIII., but
declined to be dictated to by Mrs. Ginty about the conduct of her love
affairs. Miss Goold, to whom the quarrel was referred, pleaded the
damsel's cause, and suggested privately that not even a policeman--she
had a low opinion of the force--could be swept away from the path of
respectability by a passion for so ugly a girl. Mrs. Ginty pointed out
in reply that red hair and freckles were no safeguard when a flirtation
is carried on after dark. There seemed no answer to this, and the maid
returned indi