“I will not go with you,” said Gallagher.
They had passed through Kerrigan’s shop and reached the street, when Gallagher delivered this ultimatum. Doyle hesitated. He was already late for the committee meeting. If he waited to coax Gallagher out of his bad temper he might miss the meeting altogether. He looked at the door of the hotel. Father McCormack was standing at it, waiting, perhaps, for him and Gallagher.
“Come now, Thady,” he said, “have sense. Don’t you see Father McCormack waiting for you?”
“I see him,” said Gallagher.
“And don’t you know well enough that you’ll have no luck if you go against the clergy?”
The appeal was a strong one, and had he been in any ordinary temper Gallagher would have yielded to it at once. But he was very angry indeed, far too angry to be influenced by purely religious considerations. He walked straight across the square to his office, entered it, and slammed the door behind him. Doyle followed him as far as the threshold. There he stopped and looked round. He saw Father McCormack go into the hotel. A minute later Mrs. Gregg hurried down the street and went into the hotel. Doyle sighed heavily and entered Gallagher’s office. Difficult and unpleasant as his task was likely to be, he felt that he must propitiate Thady Gallagher.
“Thady,” he said, “is there a drop of anything to drink in the place?”
“There is not,” said Gallagher, “nor I wouldn’t drink it if there was.”
This confirmed Doyle’s view of the extreme seriousness of the situation. That Gallagher should be prepared to defy the clergy was bad enough. That he should adopt an ascetic’s attitude towards drink was worse. But Doyle did not quite believe that Gallagher meant what he said. He opened a door at the far end of the office and whistled loudly. A small boy who had been cleaning type in the printing-room, appeared, rubbing his inky hands on his trousers.
“Michael Antony,” said Doyle, “will you step across to the hotel and tell Mary Ellen to give you the bottle of whisky that she’ll find in the cupboard in my own room? If you can’t find Mary Ellen—and it’s hardly ever she is to be found when she’s wanted—you can fetch the bottle yourself. If you don’t know the way to my room you ought to.”