K.: "Yes, it is. That is a copy, this is the original, and the signature of Mr. Justice Butt," and Kerley showed the original to him.
P.: "Oh, very well."
K.: "This is Mr. Wontner's card, who is the solicitor in the matter."
Mr. Parnell took the card and said, "Thank you."
It had all been clone very quietly. No one saw what was done, and Parnell was not subjected to the slightest annoyance, and he did not appear to be the least annoyed. Kerley did not enclose the original, as he was afraid to trust it through the post, but would hand it to Mr. Thomson personally.
WONTNERS, 19 LUDGATE HILL., E.C.
Wired 10 a.m., 23 April, '91.
Copy Order costs P. served personally last evening. Letter follows.
[[1]] The conversations with O'Brien and Dillon in France and the correspondence which followed were concerned with the attitude of the Irish Party towards the details of the Home Rule Bill to be introduced when the Liberals came into power. Mr. Justin McCarthy had been elected leader of the party, but Parnell insisted on his traditional right to a predominant voice in its decisions. At the beginning of 1891 there were anxious discussions about Gladstone's intentions as to the number of Irish Members to be retained at Westminster and as to the basis of a public declaration of Liberal policy. The proposals made to him were not satisfactory either to Parnell's political judgment or to his amour propre. They came to nothing, however, and both O'Brien and Dillon were arrested on their return to Ireland and put "out of the way for a bit," as Parnell said. He complained of the "depressing effect" these two colleagues had upon him; it was "so hard to keep them to the difficulties of the moment while they were so eagerly passing on the troubles of to-morrow."