“Have another drop,” said Doyle. “It’s doing you good.”
Gallagher pushed his tumbler across the table. Doyle replenished it.
“I’d be sorry,” said Doyle, “if Mr. Ford was to be able to say he’d got the better of you, Thady, in a matter of the kind.”
“It’ll not be me he’ll get the better of.”
“He’ll say it,” said Doyle, “and what’s more there’s them that will believe it. For they’ll say, recollecting the speech you made on Tuesday, that you were in favour of the statue, and that only for Mr. Ford you’d have had it.”
“If I thought that——” said Gallagher.
“Come along over now to the committee,” said Doyle, “and we’ll have the statue just in derision of him.”
“It isn’t the statue that I’m objecting to,” said Gallagher, “nor it isn’t the notion of a new pier. You know that, Doyle.”
“I do, of course.”
“And if it’s the wish of the people of this locality that there should be a statue——”