“Terrible,” she declared indignantly. “I declare this is the third ambush I’ve wheeled my baby into this week. I can show you a bullet hole through her pram top this very minute. People ought to be ashamed throwing bombs in a crowd.”
“Indeed, the Shinners are only doing their duty,” broke in a girl. “Why do the Black-and-Tans shoot back? It’s only babies they hit.”
“And aren’t the Black-and-Tans doing their duty, too?” retorted the woman with the baby, who was thoroughly roused. “Indeed, and the Shinners are taking no risks, they are not. Did ye ever see a Shinner yet that came out in the open? Did ye ever see the Shinner that——”
I walked home, leaving behind me a heated argument, and feeling rubbed up the wrong way. I decided I was quite glad to be joining Himself in the North in a day or two.
Mrs. O’Grady met me at the door.
“It’s yourself that’s all right? I was after saying a rosary for you this very minute. God save us! It’s the worst we’ve had yet. I thought the house would come down.”
“I was right in the middle of it. I made sure I was hit at first. In fact my head is still ringing.”
“And so it would,” Mrs. O’Grady agreed. “O’Grady is the very same. Miss O’Farrell is still out, and the mistress is in a fuss over it to be sure.”
She tramped off in her sandshoes to get my lunch, and I went into the sitting-room.
The door opened suddenly and in bustled Mrs. Slaney.