But I might throw in here this remark: In all that promenade and hide and seek in London streets, nobody seemed to recognise Parnell, nobody turned to look at him. He was merely a passerby like another. Crowds stare, they do not observe. They see only what is pointed out to them, what they expect to see,—and not always that.
Two or three days later, in reply to a telegram of inquiry, Parnell declined the proposal from America. My assistant sent both the inquiry and my cable. Concerning the latter, he asked me:
"What made you certain in advance?"
"A rule known to astute politicians—2 and 2 make 4. It is not altered by Home Rule, or other matters."
I have often observed, with forty years of opportunity for doing so, that few persons know so little of conditions in Ireland, of Irish conditions in Parliament, of the "Irish movement", whatever that may be at any given time, as the Americans, and particularly the Irish in America. I have had my share of rebuke for mentioning this. An illustration will serve.
During the summer of 1890 I had a few weeks in the United States. One evening in Boston I happened to meet, as I was passing his office, a man whom I knew well, Jeffrey Roche, Editor of The Pilot, an Irish paper and the principal organ of Roman Catholicism in New England. Roche had been the assistant, and later became the successor, to the late John Boyle O'Reilly, and like him was a delightful and lovable fellow and the writer of charming verse. He hated England, of course, and as I did not, we had many tilts, in print and out of it, but we were always good friends.
"Hullo, Jeffrey," said I.
"Hullo, my enemy," said he, laughing as we shook hands.
"Why 'enemy'?" I asked. "Has poor old Ireland another grievance?"