“Read it out,” said Dr. O’Grady. “I’d like the Major to hear exactly what’s on it.”
“‘Mr. Aloysius Doyle,’” read Father McCormack.
“He’s a nephew of my own,” said Doyle.
“He would be,” said Gallagher. “If he wasn’t we’d hear nothing about him.”
He was still feeling sore about the “Battle March of King Malachi the Brave,” and was anxious to make himself disagreeable to someone. It struck him that it would be easy to annoy Doyle by suggesting that he was trying to do a good turn to his nephew at the expense of the statue fund.
“I needn’t tell you, gentlemen,” said Doyle, with great dignity, “that it’s not on account of his being a nephew of my own that I’m recommending him to the notice of this committee. If he was fifty times my nephew I wouldn’t mention his name without I was sure that he was as good a man as any other for the job we have on hand.”
No one, of course, believed this, but no one wanted to argue with Doyle about it. Father McCormack went on reading from the black-edged card which he held in his hand.
“‘Mortuary Sculptor,’”
“Sculptor!” said Dr. O’Grady. “You hear that, Major, don’t you? Sculptors are people who make statues.”
“Mortuary sculptors, I suppose,” said the Major viciously, “make statues of dead men.”