“I’ll no go so far as to say precisely that,” said Ginty, “but he’s a man who never touches a drop of whisky nor smokes a pipe of tobacco. It’ll be very hard on him if he doesna go to heaven after all he’s missed in this world. But you’ll find out what kind of man he is if you go in through the door forninst you. It’s his office, thon one with the brass plate on the door. My business will keep till you’re done with him.”
Lord Dunseverick pushed open one of a pair of swinging doors, and found himself in a narrow passage. On his right was a ground glass window bearing the word “Inquiries.” He tapped at it.
For a minute or two there was no response. Lord Dunseverick brushed some of the mud, now partially dry, off his trousers, and lit a fresh cigarette. The ground glass window was opened, and a redhaired clerk looked out.
“I want to see Mr. McMunn,” said Lord Dunseverick, “Mr. Andrew McMunn.”
The clerk put his head and shoulders out through the window, and surveyed Lord Dunseverick suspiciously. Very well dressed young men, with pale lavender ties and pearl tie-pins—Lord Dunseverick had both—are not often seen in Belfast quay-side offices.
“If you want to see Mr. McMunn,” said the clerk, “—and I’m no saying you will, mind that—you’d better take yon cigarette out of your mouth. There’s no smoking allowed here.”
Lord Dunseverick took his cigarette out of his mouth, but he did not throw it away. He held it between his fingers.
“Just tell Mr. McMunn,” he said, “that Lord Dunseverick is here.”
The clerk’s manner altered suddenly. He drew himself up, squared his shoulders, and saluted.
The discovery that a stranger is a man of high rank often produces this kind of effect on men of strong democratic principles, principles of the kind held by clerks in all business communities, quite as firmly in Belfast as elsewhere. But it would have been a mistake to suppose that Mr. McMunn’s junior clerk was a mere worshipper of title. His salute was not the tribute of a snob to the representative of an aristocratic class. It was the respect due by a soldier, drilled and disciplined, to his superior officer. It was also the expression of a young man’s sincere hero-worship. The redhaired clerk was a Volunteer, duly enrolled, one of the signatories of the famous Ulster Covenant. Lord Dunseverick had made speeches which moved his soul to actual rapture.