“The same to you,” said Doyle, “and may you live long to enjoy it. Will you have another drop?”
“I don’t mind if I do,” said Thady.
Doyle filled up the empty tumbler. As he did so Gallagher spoke with serious deliberation.
“Seeing that you’re a man I’ve every confidence in, I’d be glad if you’d tell me this. Who was General John Regan? For I never heard tell of him.”
“It’ll be better for you, Thady, to know something about him be the same more or less, before the gentleman within has finished his dinner. He’ll be asking questions of you the whole of the rest of the day.”
“Let him ask.”
“And you’ll have to be answering him, for he’ll not rest contented without you do.”
“There’s no Regans here,” said Gallagher, “and what’s more there never was.”
“There’s no statue anyway,” said Doyle, “nor there won’t be.”
“I don’t know that there’d be any harm in a statue,” said Gallagher. “What has me bothered is who the General was.”