"Well, why on earth didn't you say so?" I demanded.
He didn't answer; but of course I realised instantly why he hadn't said so. If he had, he wouldn't have got the job. That was what he was afraid of. In fact, he was afraid, even yet, that I would take the bags away from him and get some one else to carry them. I didn't do that, but I took command of the expedition.
"Come along," I said. "You follow me."
"Thank you, sir," he said, his face lighting up again, and fell in behind us.
As we retraced our steps, I tried to figure out how he had expected to find the hotel by plunging straight ahead without asking the way of any one, and for how long, if I had not stopped him, he would have kept on walking. Perhaps he had expected to keep going round and round until some good fairy led him to our destination.
At the corner of Sackville Street, I saw a policeman's helmet looming high above the crowd, and I went to him and asked the way, while our porter waited in the background. Perhaps he was afraid of policemen, or perhaps it was just the instinctive Irish dislike of them. This particular one bent a benignant face down upon us from his altitude of something over six feet, and in a moment set us right. The hotel was only a few steps away. The door was locked, and I had to ring, and while we were waiting, our porter looked about him with a bewildered face.
"What name was it you gave this street, sir?" he asked, at last.
"Sackville Street," I answered, and pointed for confirmation to the sign at the corner, very plain under the electric light.
From the vacant look he gave it I knew he couldn't read; but he scratched his head perplexedly.
"A friend of mine told me 'twas O'Connell Street," he said finally, and I paid him and dismissed him without realising that I had been brought face to face with the age-long conflict between English officialism and Irish patriotism.