"Thanks. What's the rest of the yarn?"
"Well, let me go back a bit."
Carstairs sighed.
Darwen laughed. "When we had that unpleasant incident in the committee the other day, I watched 'em all, carefully, as I made my points. When Green called me a rogue and a liar, I watched 'em all. They didn't seem to think it a very grave charge. But when I answered him, when I said, 'You've called me a rogue and a liar, Mr Green, but I think you'll find if you carefully analyse your feelings on the matter, that it's my honesty and not my roguery, that annoys you. I'm sorry I can't see things as you do, Mr Green, but I'm a sportsman, and anything that appears to me unfair, or that I can't fully grasp, I invariably expose to the daylight, and turn and twist it till I can understand it, or till I let daylight into it. That's my method, Mr Green, and I may assure you that it is as unalterable as the laws of the Medes and Persians.'"
"How's that for eloquence? We used to run a sort of parliament at school, rather good practice, you know." Darwen laughed lightly.
"Very good," Carstairs observed.
"So they all agreed, and Mr Pat Donovan (publican and bookmaker) made a most vehement speech in support of it. But when I was making it, and several other little points, I observed that the majority of them looked a sort of pea-green colour. Have you ever been sea-sick?"
"Heaps of times."
"Then you'll appreciate how they felt. They wanted to get out and walk but they couldn't, and the way Donovan and M'Carthy rubbed it into poor old Green was astonishing. The Irish are really a wonderful people. I summed it up that there were two honest men in all that committee; one was Dr Jameson at the head of the table, and the other was Mr John Brown, navvy, at the foot of the table. I observed them with the greatest possible interest; the study of mankind is all-enthralling. Those representatives of the several parts of these tiny little islands were as distinct as possible; the Irish, loud and violent; the Welshmen, quiet and sly; the Englishmen, two of them justly indignant, and two just a trifle uneasy; the Scotsman, like an owl, very wise. Now I'll bet if there were a public inquiry on those men, the two Englishmen who have made perhaps £20 each, would come off worst. The Irishmen, who have made perhaps £50 or £60 per annum, would be next. The Welshmen, who have made about the same, would be let off lightly. The two honest Englishmen would have a stain on their characters till their dying day, and the Scotsman, who has probably been making a steady £500 per annum, would leave the court without a stain on his character. People would cheer wildly in the streets, and frantic fools would rush forward to shake him by the hand—then he'd reluctantly accept a modest salary of £200 per week to show himself on the music-hall stage, and send a few simple manly letters to the papers acknowledging the receipt of a large public subscription to keep his old mother (who'd been dead years) out of the workhouse."
Carstairs laughed. "You seem down on the Scotch. Personally I liked them when I lived there."