e
son of a Presbyterian farmer in County Tyrone, he had joined the Irish
Parliamentary party, and made himself particularly objectionable in
Westminster. He had devoted his talents to discovering and publishing
the principles upon which appointments to lucrative posts are made
by the officials in Dublin Castle. It was found convenient at last to
provide him with a salary and a seat on the Congested Districts Board.
Thus he found himself engaged in ameliorating the lot of the Connaught
peasants. Mr. Clifford used to describe him as 'a bit of a bounder--in
fact, a complete outsider--but no fool.' His estimate of Mr. Clifford
was perhaps less complimentary.

'Every business,' he used to say, 'must have at least one gentleman in
it to do the entertaining and the dining out. We have Mr. Clifford. He's
a first-rate man at one of the Lord Lieutenant's balls.'

A professor from Trinity College was one of the two guests conducted by
the Reverend Mother herself. Nominally this learned gentleman existed
for the purpose of impressing upon the world the beauties of Latin
poetry, but he was best known to fame as an orator on the platforms
of the Primrose League, and a writer of magazine articles on Irish
questions. He was a man who owed his success in life largely to his
faculty for always keeping beside the most important person present. The
Lord Lieutenant, being slightly indisposed, had been unable to make an
early start, so the most honourable stranger was Mr. Chesney, the Chief
Secretary. To him Professor Cairns attached himself, and received a
share of the Reverend Mother's blandishments.

Mr. Chesney himself was dapper and smiling as usual. Even the early
hour at which he had been obliged to leave home had neither ruffled his
temper nor withered the flower in his buttonhole. He spent his money
generously at the various stalls in the garden, addressed friendly
remarks to the women in the factory, and asked the questions with which
Mr. Davis had primed him in the train.

Quite a crowd of minor people followed the great statesman. There were
barristers who hoped to become County Court Judges, and ladies who
enjoyed a novel kind of occasion for displaying their clothes, hoping to
see their names afterwards in the newspaper accounts of the proceedings.
There were a few foremen from leading Dublin shops, who foresaw the
possibility of a fashionable boom in Robeen tweeds and flannels. There
were also reporters from the Dublin pap