Maryvale chuckled. “That was certainly an unlucky dive of logic, my friend. No, Mr. Bannerlee, Sean Cosgrove aspires to restore the ancient dynasties of Munster and Leinster!”
“But—well, how will he find the lines? They’re extinct, aren’t they?”
“I should hesitate to say categorically where Cosgrove is planning to discover them.”
“But how will he set about it?”
“Well, if I tell you baldly, you’ll think he’s utterly mad. He’s going to advertise in the Times.”
A vast vacuum of seconds must have gone by, while I looked again intently at the huge face so solemn over its slips of pasteboard, before I ventured, “And what do you think of him yourself, then?”
“Let me explain what I meant when I said that Cosgrove will advertise in the Times to find the true rulers of Munster and Leinster. He will not advertise there alone; he will put the inquiry in every little rag and sheet. He will send men among the peasants on the land to ask. He will receive answers, will he not, Mr. Bannerlee?”
“Of every sort.”
“Of every sort, as you say. The genealogist will ridicule, the republican will sneer or snarl, the crank will present his ready-made conclusions, the peasant will tell the tale his grandmother’s grandmother crooned to her and she to him. And Sean Cosgrove will receive every answer for the sake of the good that may be in it. He is ready to examine every contention of the genealogist, to sift the fables rigorously, to get at the root of every wild story, to criticize every legend—and in the end he will find his man, or find his truth! Let us go in.”
We reopened the french windows, entered the Hall of the Moth.