d to go, there flashed across his mind the recollection
of Miss Goold and her friends who wrote for the _Croppy_.

'There's one paper in Ireland, anyhow,' he said, 'which is not afraid
of your wife nor your Archbishop. I'll write to the _Croppy_, and you'll
see if they won't publish the facts.'

Mr. Dowling grinned.

'I don't care if they do,' he said. 'The priests are dead against the
_Croppy_, and there's hardly a man in the town reads it. Go up there
now to Hely's and try if you can buy a copy. I tell you it isn't on sale
here at all, and whatever they publish will do me no harm.'

When Hyacinth returned to the hotel he found Mr. Holywell seated, with
the inevitable whisky-and-water beside him, in the commercial-room.

'Well, Mr. Conneally,' he said, 'and how is patriotism paying you? Find
people ready to buy what's Irish?'

Hyacinth, boiling over with indignation, related his experience with Mr.
Dowling.

'What did I tell you?' said Mr. Hollywell. 'But anyhow you're just as
well out of a deal with that fellow. I wouldn't care to do business with
him myself. I happen to know, and you may take my word for it '--his
voice sunk to a confidential whisper--'that he's very deep in the books
of two English firms, and that he daren't--simply daren't--place
an order with anyone else. They'd have him in the Bankruptcy Court
to-morrow if he did. I shouldn't feel easy with Mr. Dowling's cheque for
an account until I saw how the clerk took it across the bank counter.
You mark my words, there'll be a fire in that establishment before the
year's out.'

The prophecy was fulfilled, as Hyacinth learnt from the _Mayo
Telegraphy_ and Mr. Dowling's whole stock of goods was consumed. There
were rumours that a sceptical insurance company made difficulties about
paying the compensation demanded; but the inhabitants of Ardnaree marked
their confidence in the husband of an Archbishop's niece by presenting
him with an address of sympathy and a purse containing ten sovereigns.

Most of Hyacinth's business was done with small shopkeepers in remote
districts. The country-people who lived out of reach of such centres
of fashion as Ardnaree and Clogher were sufficiently unsophisticated to
prefer things which were really good. Hats and bonnets were not quite
universal among the women in the mountain districts far back where they
spoke Irish, and Mr. Quinn's head-kerchiefs were still in request. Even
the younger women wanted garments which