“It’s very kind of you to say so and of course I quite believe you, but then you afterward gave me to understand that your real object was to work up the emotion caused by the appearance of a dead king with a view to utilizing it to add intensity to a prize poem. That, of course, is business of a very serious kind. That’s why I meant to say a minute ago that of the two reasons you gave me for coming here the second was the more urgent.”
“Don’t ramble in that way,” said Lalage. “It wastes time. Hilda, explain the scheme which we have in mind at present.”
Hilda threw away the greater part of a cigarette and sat up in her beehive. I do not think that Hilda enjoys smoking cigarettes. She probably does it to impress the public with the genuine devotion to principle of the A.T.R.S.
“The society,” said Hilda “has met with difficulties. Its objects——”
“He knows the objects,” said Lalage. “Don’t you?”
“To expose in the public press——” I began.
“That’s just where we’re stuck,” said Lalage.
“Do you mean to tell me that the Irish newspapers have been so incredibly stupid as not to publish the articles sent by you, Hilda, and Selby-Harrison?”
“Not a single one of them,” said Lalage.
“And the bishops,” I said, “still wear their purple stocks, their aprons, and their gaiters; and still talk tommyrot through the length and breadth of the land.”