He gave his whole mind to the consideration of the problem which pressed on him. He balanced theories. He blamed tea, inter-marriage, potatoes, bad whisky, religious enthusiasm, and did not find any of them nor all of them together satisfactory as explanations of the awful facts. He fell back finally on a theory of race decadence. Already fine phrases were forming themselves in his mind: “The inexpressible beauty of autumnal decay.” “The exquisiteness of the decadent efflorescence of a passing race.”
He covered a sheet of foolscap with a bare—he called it a detached—statement of the facts about Irish lunacy. He had just begun to recount his own experience when there was a knock at the door. The housekeeper, a legacy from Dr. Farelly, came in to tell him that Constable Malone wished to speak to him. Dr. Lovaway left his MS. with a sigh. He found Constable Malone, a tall man of magnificent physique, standing in the hall, the raindrops dripping from the cape he wore.
“The sergeant is after sending me round to you, sir,” said Constable Malone, “to know would it be convenient for you to attend at Ballygran any time this afternoon to certify a lunatic?”
“Surely not another!” said Dr. Lovaway.
“It was myself found him, sir,” said the constable with an air of pride in his achievement. “The sergeant bid me say that he’d have Patsy Doolan’s car engaged for you, and that him and me would go with you so that you wouldn’t have any trouble more than the trouble of going to Ballygran, which is an out-of-the-way place sure enough, and it’s a terrible day.”
“Is the man violent?” asked Dr. Lovaway.
By way of reply Constable Malone gave a short account of the man’s position in life.
“He’s some kind of a nephew of Mrs. Finnegan,” he said, “and they call him Jimmy Finnegan, though Finnegan might not be his proper name. He does be helping Finnegan himself about the farm, and they say he’s middling useful. But, of course, now the harvest’s gathered, Finnegan will be able to do well enough without him till the spring.”
This did not seem to Dr. Lovaway a sufficient reason for incarcerating Jimmy in an asylum.
“But is he violent?” he repeated. “Is he dangerous to himself or others?”