“That speech,” said McMunn, “was made for an entirely different purpose. If you thought that we wanted a German Army in Ulster, or that we meant to fire on the British flag——”
“It is exactly what I did think,” said Von Edelstein.
“You’re a born fool, then,” said McMunn.
“Perhaps,” said Lord Dunseverick, “we ought not to drown him. Suppose we take him home, and hand him over to the Ulster Provisional Government?”
“I wish you would,” said Von Edelstein, “I am a student of human nature. I should greatly like to meet your Ulster Government.”
“You’ll maybe not like it so much when they hang you,” said McMunn, “and it’s what they’ll do.”
XI ~~ SIR TIMOTHY’S DINNER-PARTY
Mr. Courtney, the R.M., was a man of ideas, and prided himself on his sympathy with progress, the advance of thought, and similar delights. If he had been thirty years younger, and had lived in Dublin, he would have been classed among the “Intellectuals.” He would then have written a gloomy play or two, several poems and an essay, published at a shilling, in a green paper cover, on the “Civilization of the Future.” Being, unfortunately, fifty-five years of age, he could not write poetry or gloomy plays. Nobody can after the age of forty. Being a Resident Magistrate, he was debarred from discussing the Civilization of the Future in print. No Government allows its paid servant to write books on controversial subjects. But Mr. Courtney remained intellectually alert, and was a determined champion of the cause of progress, even amid the uncongenial society of a West of Ireland town.
The introduction of Summer Time gave Mr. Courtney a great opportunity. Almost everyone else in the neighbourhood objected to the change of the clock. Cows, it was said, disliked being milked before their accustomed hour. Dew collects in deep pools, and renders farm work impossible in the early morning. It is unreasonable to expect labourers, who have to rise early in any case, to get out of their beds before the day is properly warm. Mr. Courtney combated all these objections with arguments which struck him as sound, but irritated everybody else. When it appeared that Ireland, worse treated as usual than England, was to be fined an additional twenty-five minutes, and was to lose the proud privilege of Irish time, Mr. Courtney was more pleased than ever. He made merry over what he called the arguments of reactionary patriotism.