“There’ll be no statue,” said Doyle. “It’s all very well to be talking, but the rates is too high already without an extra penny in the pound for a statue that nobody wants.”
“I wouldn’t be in favour of a statue myself,” said Gallagher, “unless, of course, the gentleman was to pay for it himself, and he might.”
“Of course if he was to pay for it, it would be different. By the look of the motor-car he came in I’d say he’d plenty of money.”
The idea that Mr. Billing could pay for a statue was a pleasant one, and it was always possible that he might do so. He appeared to be very anxious that there should be a statue.
“There’s some men,” said Doyle hopefully, “that has no sense in the way they spend what money they’ve got.”
Mr. Gallagher admitted with a sigh that there are such men. He himself had no money, or very little. If, as he hoped, he succeeded in becoming a Member of Parliament, he would have money, large quantities of it, a full £400 a year. He would have more sense than to spend any of it in erecting statues. Doyle, on the other hand, had money. He lent it freely, at a high rate of interest, to the other inhabitants of Ballymoy. This was his idea of the proper use of money. To spend it on works of public utility or sentimental value, struck him as very foolish.
“I’d be glad, all the same,” said Gallagher, “if I knew who the General was that he’s talking about.”
“It could be,” said Doyle hopefully, “that he was one of them ones that fought against the Government at the time of Wolfe Tone.”
“He might, of course. But the gentleman was saying something about Bolivia.”
“Where’s that at all?” said Doyle.