"No," said Meldon; "your insults are more directly personal. A minute ago you called me a liar, which is much worse than anything I said about Englishmen. Besides which it isn't true, whereas what I'm saying about the English is an absolute fact. Take yourself, for example. What was it that upset your temper just now in the study? Was it an overwhelming love for the abstract quality of punctuality? I should have some respect for you if I thought it was, but I can't think that. Nobody who knows you could. You wouldn't care a pin if everybody in the world was late for every engagement they made for a whole year. What you do care about is your own miserable stomach. If it isn't filled at just exactly the usual moment you get savage, although you are usually a fairly good-tempered man. That demonstrates the truth of what I say. And if it's truth about you after all the years you've lived in this country, it is, of course, much more true about this judge. Therefore, to get back to what I was saying a minute ago—having failed in my appeal to his intellect—I fall back upon the one vulnerable part of him and try if I can influence him through that."
"Do tell me what you've done, J. J."
"I've told Sabina Gallagher—"
"Who is Sabina Gallagher?"
"She's Doyle's cook. She is, in the opinion of the judge, quite the most important person in the whole of Ballymoy."
"I don't expect he really thinks that," said the Major, "after seeing you. But what did you tell Sabina?"
"I told her that everything he got to eat was to taste of paraffin oil. That, I think, ought to drive him out of Ballymoy in twenty-four hours."
"It'll probably drive Sabina out of her job. Doyle will sack her to-morrow morning."
"No, he won't. His food won't taste of paraffin."
"In any case she won't do it," said the Major. "No girl would be so wicked."