r clear high-pitched
voices proclaimed contempt for their surroundings, and left no doubt of
their nationality. One of them addressed a bewildered porter in cheerful
song:

'Are you right there,
Michael? are you right?
Have you got the parcel there for Mrs. White?'

He felt, and his companions sympathized, that he was entering into the
spirit of Irish life. Then, heralded by an obsequious guard, came a
great man, proconsular in mien and gait. Bags and rugs were wheeled
beside him. In his hand was a despatch-box bearing the tremendous
initials of the Local Government Board. He took complete possession of
a first-class smoking carriage, scribbled a telegram, perhaps of
international importance, handed it to the guard for instant despatch,
and lit a finely-odorous cigar. Hyacinth, humbled by the mere view of
this incarnation of the Imperial spirit, went meekly to the waiting-room
to fetch Marion and his child. He led them across the now crowded
platform towards a third-class carriage.

'I will not go with you in your first-class carriage, Father Lavelle; so
that's flat. Nor I won't split the difference and go second either, if
that's what you're going to propose to me. Is it spend what would keep
the family of a poor man in bread and tea for a week, for the sake of
easing my back with a cushion? Get away with you. The plain deal board's
good enough for me. And, moreover, I doubt very much if I've the money
to do it, if I were ever so willing. I'm afraid to look into my purse to
count the few coppers that's left in it after paying that murdering bill
in the hotel you took me to. Gresham, indeed! A place where they're
not ashamed to charge a poor old priest three and sixpence for his
breakfast, and me not able to eat the half of what they put before me.'

Hyacinth turned quickly. Two priests stood together near the bookstall.
The one, a young man, handsome and well-dressed, he did not know. The
other he recognised at once. It seemed to be the same familiarly shabby
black coat which he wore, the same many-stained waistcoat, the identical
silk hat, ruffled and rain-spotted. The same pads of flesh hung flaccid
from his jaws; the red, cracked knuckles of his hands, well remembered,
were enormous still. Only the furrows on the face seemed to be ploughed
deeper and wider, and a few more stiff hairs curled over the general
bushiness of the grizzled eyebrows.

'Father Moran!' cried Hyacinth.

'I am Father Mora