"Good God, man!" said I; "look all round you."
"What for?" said he.
"For everything. God's in His heaven."
"He is indeed," said Quin. "And as far as this country's concerned I'm afraid 'tis the way He'll stay there."
I laughed at that; but his face had no sign of mirth in it.
"They're goin' to give us Home Rule," he continued. "Shure, Glory be to God, what'll we be doin' rulin' ourselves whin Tim Burke and Jim Reilly were fightin' yesterday at the council meeting as to whether the new lamp-post in Dorgan Street should be put opposite Jim Reilly's house or Tim Burke's?"
"And which did they decide?" I asked.
"Shure, they didn't decide at all. Why would they? They fought like two creatures from hell till Michael Mahony got up and said the only way to settle it was to have no lamp-post at all. 'Twas the judgment av Solomon, he said—but yirrah, what the divil's the judgment of Solomon to do with Dorgan Street? Shure, I dunno know who Solomon was. He might have been a Jew by the sounds av him. 'Tis Dorgan Street anyways that'll have no lamp-post and 'tis as dark there in that street on a night ye couldn't see yeer own fisht to shtrike a man with. Ye could not. An' if they come to do with the land as they did with Dorgan Street, I want to know what the hell is Home Rule goin' to be to us thin?"
"But, good heavens!" said I. "You've been crying for Home Rule for more than a century!"
"We have indeed," said he, "but God help us, we never expected to get ut. An' now they're talkin' of Johnnie Redmond, the hero. Faith, the only heroes in Ireland are the min like Emmet, who died for his country, and didn't get what he wanted even then. Shure, Johnnie Redmond is no hero. He's a prosperous man. He'll be wearin' a diamond shtud in his shirt front before long, and dhrivin' down Pathrick Street in Cork in a carriage and pair on a Sathurday afternoon for the people to look at him. Shure, that's no hero. 'Tis he'll have the lamp-post in front of his house if there are any goin'. He will indeed."