ounds
the Congested Districts Board gave to the convent at Bobeen. But it is
hardly fair to hold the Government responsible for the way that body
wastes eighty thousand pounds a year.'

'The Government is ultimately responsible, and you must admit that,
after such a gift, and in view of the others which will certainly
follow, you are called upon to meet most unfair competition.'

'Yes, I admit that. But isn't that exactly what you want to make
general? There doesn't seem to me any difference between giving a bounty
to one industry and imposing a protective tariff in favour of another;
and if your preference for Irish manufactures means anything, it means
a sort of voluntary protection for every business in the country. If you
object to the Robeen business being subsidized you can't logically try
to insist on mine being protected.'

It was puzzling to have the tables turned on him so adroitly. Hyacinth
was reduced to feeble threat.

'Just wait a while till the nuns get another four thousand pounds, and
perhaps four thousand pounds more after that, and see how it will affect
you.'

Mr. Quinn smiled.

'I'm not much afraid of nuns as trade competitors, or, for the matter of
that, of the Congested Districts Board either. If the Yorkshire people
would only import a few Mother Superiors to manage their factories,
and take the advice of members of our Board in their affairs, I would
cheerfully make them a present of any reasonable subsidy, and beat them
out of the market afterwards.'

There was another influence at work on Hyacinth's mind which had as much
to do with the decay of his patriotism as either the gardening or Mr.
Quinn's logic. Marion Beecher and her sister were very frequently at the
Mill House during the spring and summer. There was one long afternoon
which was spent in the marking out of the tennis-ground. Mr. Quinn had
theories involving calculations with a pencil and pieces of paper about
the surest method of securing right angles at the corners and parallel
lines down the sides of the court. Hyacinth and Marion worked obediently
with a tape measure and the garden line. One of the boys messed
cheerfully with a pail of liquid whitening. Afterwards the gardening was
somewhat deserted, and Hyacinth was instructed in the game. It took
him a long time to learn, and for many afternoons he and Marion were
regularly beaten, but she would not give up hope of him. Often the
excuse of her coming to the Quinns was