"Yes," Henry had replied promptly. "He's that kind of man!"
"No, he wouldn't," Galway retorted. "They'd have educated the decency out of him, and he'd have been a ... a sort of Lord Ashtown!"
But Henry would have none of that. He would not believe that a man's nature can be altered by pedagogues.
"Horace Plunkett would have been a good Irishman if he'd been born and reared and educated in an Orange Lodge," he said.
"I'm not talking about natures," Galway replied. "I'm talking about beliefs. They'd have told him it was no good trying to build up an Irish nation...."
"He wouldn't have believed them," Henry retorted. "Damn it, Galway, do you think a man like Plunkett would let a lot of fiddling schoolmasters knock him off his balance?"
"I'm a schoolmaster," Galway answered, "and I know what schoolmasters can do!" His voice changed, deepening, as he spoke. "I know what the young teachers in Ireland mean to do!"
"What do they mean to do?" Henry had asked jokingly.
"Make Irishmen," Galway answered.
"If only Trinity would make Irishmen," he went on, "we'd all be saved a deal of trouble. But it won't, and when a man of family, like Plunkett, is born with good will for Ireland, he has to go to England to be educated. And he ought to be educated in Ireland, and he would be if Trinity were worth a damn. I wish I were Provost, I'd teach Irishmen to be proud of their birth!"