“He might,” said Doyle, “if we approached him on the subject.”
“He’ll have to,” said Dr. O’Grady, “for £100 is all we’ve got, and we can’t run into debt.”
“He did say,” said Doyle, “that 3d. a letter was the regular charge for cutting inscriptions.”
“We’ll make it short,” said Dr. O’Grady. “We won’t stick him for more than about 10s. over the inscription. After all long inscriptions are vulgar. I propose that Mr. Thaddeus Gallagher, as the only representative of the press among us, be commissioned to write the inscription.”
“We couldn’t have a better man,” said Father McCormack.
“I’ll not do it,” said Gallagher. He had a solid reason for refusing the honour offered to him. The writer of an inscription at the base of a statue is almost bound to make some statement about the person whom the statue represents.
“You will now, Thady,” said Doyle, “and you’ll do it well.”
“I will not,” said Gallagher. “Let the doctor do it himself.”
“There’s no man in Connacht better fit to draw up an inscription of the kind,” said Father McCormack, “than Mr. Gallagher.”
Thady Gallagher was susceptible to flattery. He would have liked very well to draw up an inscription for the statue, modelling it on the resolutions which he was accustomed to propose at political meetings in favour of’ Home Rule. But he was faced with what seemed to him an insuperable difficulty. He did not know who General John Regan was.