The colonel and the padre agreed. Aurelle alone protested.
"Aurelle, my friend," said Dr. O'Grady, "if you want to be thought anything of amongst Englishmen, you must make yourself see their point of view. They don't care for melancholy people, and have a contempt for sentiment. This applies to love as well as to patriotism and religion. If you want the colonel to despise you, stick a flag in your tunic. If you want the padre to treat you with contempt, give him a letter to censor full of pious rubbish; if you want to make Parker sick, weep over a photograph. They spend their youth hardening their skins and their hearts. They fear neither physical blows nor the blows of fate. They look upon exaggeration as the worst of vices, and coldness as a sign of aristocracy. When they are very miserable, they smile. When they are very happy, they say nothing at all. And au fond John Bull is terribly sentimental, which explains everything."
"All that is perfectly true, Aurelle," said Parker, "but you must not say it. The doctor is a confounded Irishman who cannot hold his tongue."
Upon which, the doctor and Major Parker began a discussion on the Irish question in their usual amusingly sarcastic manner. The colonel looked in his box of records for "When Irish eyes are smiling," then wisely and courteously interrupted them.
"And so, Aurelle," concluded Major Parker, "you see us poor Englishmen searching hard for the solution of a problem when there isn't one. You may think that the Irish want certain definite reforms, and that they will be happy and contented the day they get them; but not at all. What amuses them is discussion itself, plotting in theory. They play with the idea of Home Rule; if we gave it them, the game would be finished and they would invent another, probably a more dangerous one."
"Go to Ireland after the War, messiou," said the colonel, "it's an extraordinary country. Every one is mad. You can commit the worst crimes—it doesn't matter. Nothing matters."
"The worst crimes?" said Aurelle, "Oh, I say, sir!"
"Oh yes, anything you like—the most unheard-of things. You can go out hunting in brown breeches, fish in your neighbour's salmon river—nothing will happen; no one will take the smallest notice of you."
"I do believe," said Aurelle, "that I am beginning to understand the Irish question."
"I will finish your education," said the doctor. "A year before the War a Liberal M.P. who was visiting Ireland said to an old peasant, 'Well, my friend, we are soon going to give you Home Rule!' 'God save us, your honour,' said the man, 'do not do that.' 'What?' said the astonished Member. 'You don't want Home Rule now?' 'Your honour,' said the man, 'I'll tell you. You are a good Christian, your honour? It's to heaven you want to go? So do I, but we do not want to go there to-night.'"