Mr. Billing took off his hat, laid down his camera, and shook hands with the doctor.
“Mine is Billing,” he said. “Horace P. Billing. I come from America. My object in visiting Ballymoy——”
“The poor old General, of course,” said Dr. O’Grady. “We thought you’d be sure to come sooner or later. Your uncle, wasn’t he, or great uncle? I forget.”
Mr. Billing seemed surprised, very much surprised. He dropped Dr. O’Grady’s hand abruptly and stared at him. Then he recovered himself with an effort.
“I can’t claim relationship with that great man,” he said.
“That’s a pity,” said Dr. O’Grady.
“I’m his biographer,” said Mr. Billing. “I’m engaged in writing the first complete life of the founder of the Bolivian Republic. I have come to Ballymoy——”
“You couldn’t possibly have come to a better place.”
Dr. O’Grady was not a literary man, but he had an idea that people who write books seek out quiet places in which they are not likely to be over excited while engaged in their trying work. Ballymoy seemed to him a suitable place for anyone engaged in writing a biography.
“It surprises me some,” said Mr. Billing, “to find that you’ve no statue erected to the memory of the General. I’d have thought——”