“You told me all about that before,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Bring him in, Bridgy, bring in the pair of them, and let’s hear what it is they want.”
Constable Moriarty entered the room, followed at a little distance by Mary Ellen. He led her forward, and set her in front of Dr. O’Grady. He looked very much as Touchstone must have looked when he presented the rustic Audrey to the exiled Duke as “a poor virgin, sir, an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own.”
“If you want a marriage license,” said Dr. O’Grady, “you’ve come to the wrong man. Go up to Father McCormack.”
“I do not want a marriage license,” said Constable Moriarty, “for I’m not long enough in the force to get leave to marry. And to do it without leave is what I wouldn’t care to risk.”
“If you don’t want to marry her,” said Doyle, “I’d be glad if you’d let her alone the way she’d be able to do her work. It’s upsetting her mind you are with the way you’re going on.”
“Is it true what they tell me,” said Moriarty, “that the Lord-Lieutenant’s coming to the town?”
“I think we may say it is true,” said Dr. O’Grady.
“To open the statue you’re putting up to the General?”
“‘Open’ isn’t the word used about statues,” said Dr. O’Grady, “but you’ve got the general idea right enough.”
“What I was saying to Mary Ellen,” said Moriarty, “is that seeing as she’s the niece of the General——”