"You would, would you? And do you know what 'ud happen to you? The people 'ud cut your head off at the end of a fortnight."
"I wouldn't let them."
Hinde sat in silence for a few minutes. Then he leant forward and tapped John on the shoulder, "The editor of the Daily Sensation is a Tyrone man," he said. "He comes from Cookstown!..."
"I never was in it," John murmured.
"Mebbe not, but it exists all the same. Go up the morrow evening to his office and tell him you want a job on his paper so's you can start telling everybody the truth. And see what happens to you."
John answered angrily. "You think you're having me on," he said, "but you're queerly mistaken. I will go, and we'll see what happens!"
"That's what I'm bidding you do," Hinde continued. "And listen! There's a couple I know, called Haverstock, living out at Hampstead. They have discussions every month at their house on some subject or other, and there's to be one next Wednesday. Will you come with me if I go to it?"
John nodded his head.
"Good! The Haverstocks'll be glad to welcome you as you're a friend of mine, but it's not them I'm wanting you to see. It's the crowd they get round them. All the cranks and oddities and solemn mugs of London seem to go to that house one time or another, and I'd just like you to have a look at some of them. The minute they find out you're Irish, they'll plaster you with praise. They'll expect you to talk like a clown, one minute, and weep bitter tears over England's tyranny the next. They're all English, most of them, and they'll tell you that England is the worst country in the world, and that Ireland would be the greatest if it weren't for the fact that some piffling Balkan State is greater. And they'll ram Truth down your throat till you're sick of it. You've only to bleat about Ireland's woes to them, and call yourself a member of a subject race, and they'll be all over you before you know where you are. There's only one other man has a better chance of shining in their society than an Irishman, and that's an Armenian."
"Well, that's great credit to them," John, replied. "I must say it makes me think well of the English!..."