"I stayed with some people in England last holidays, friends of my people's; Protestants they were, too—Sour-faces,' as the 'Leader' calls them!—and they didn't give a blow what religion I was! That was my affair, they thought—and so it was, too! Not like this crowd here—I don't mean my own people, you know," he added hastily, "they're all right!"
"Oh, I'm sure!" said Barty, in instant assent.
"I hate England, of course," continued the student of The Spirit of the Nation, hurriedly, "but I must say I get sick of this eternal blackguarding of Catholics by Protestants, and Protestants by Catholics——"
"Ah, they don't mean it half the time!" put in Barty, pacifically; "it's just a trick they have!"
"Well, I don't care," said Larry, who didn't like being interrupted, with a fling of his head; "they shouldn't do it! I hear people shutting up when I come into the room—just as if I didn't jolly well know they were abusing the priests or something like that. And if they only knew it, I don't care a curse how much they abuse them!"
He took an angry pull at his cigarette, glaring at the unoffending Barty. "''Tisn't the man I respects, 'tis the office!' That's what Mrs. Twomey said, when I was chaffing her for dragging gravel up from the river to put in front of her house, because the priest, whom she loathes, was going to have a 'station' there!"
The orator paused for breath, as well as for the duty of keeping his cigarette alight.
"Well, and isn't she quite right, too?" said Barty. "I've no great fancy for Father Greer, but that doesn't affect my feeling for the Church."
He rose, and resting his elbows on the window-sill, leaned out into the still air.
"By Jingo! You don't often see the beat o' that for a sky! Look at it, Larry. There's Orange and Green for you, if you like! God! I wish we could get them to work together like that!"