“And you will,” said Doyle soothingly, “you will.”
“I’ll not be a party to any address of welcome from the Urban District Council,” said Gallagher.
“We wouldn’t ask it of you. Doesn’t everybody know that you wouldn’t consent to it?”
“It’s the Major put you up to it,” said Gallagher.
“It was not then.”
“If it wasn’t him it was Mr. Ford, the R.M.”
“If you’d seen Mrs. Ford when she heard of it,” said Doyle, “you wouldn’t be saying that. Tell me this now, Thady. Have you your speech ready for the meeting on Tuesday? Everybody’s saying you’ll be making a grand one.”
“I haven’t it what you’d call rightly ready,” said Gallagher, “but I have it so as it will be ready when the time comes.”
“It’s you the people will be wanting to hear,” said Doyle. “It’s you they’d rather be listening to than any other one even if he was a member of Parliament: It’s my opinion, Thady, and there’s more than me that says it—it’s my opinion there’s better men that isn’t in Parliament than some that is. I’ll say no more presently; but some day I’ll be doing more than say it.”