Dubliners
a little detachment which left the city shortly after noon on Sunday
with the purpose of arriving as soon as possible at some public-house
on the outskirts of the city where its members duly qualified
themselves as _bona fide_ travellers. But his fellow-travellers had
never consented to overlook his origin. He had begun life as an obscure
financier by lending small sums of money to workmen at usurious
interest. Later on he had become the partner of a very fat short
gentleman, Mr Goldberg, in the Liffey Loan Bank. Though he had never
embraced more than the Jewish ethical code his fellow-Catholics,
whenever they had smarted in person or by proxy under his exactions,
spoke of him bitterly as an Irish Jew and an illiterate and saw divine
disapproval of usury made manifest through the person of his idiot son.
At other times they remembered his good points.
“I wonder where did he go to,” said Mr Kernan.
He wished the details of the incident to remain vague. He wished his
friends to think there had been some mistake, that Mr Harford and he
had missed each other. His friends, who knew quite well Mr Harford’s
manners in drinking, were silent. Mr Power said again:
“All’s well that ends well.”
Mr Kernan changed the subject at once.
“That was a decent young chap, that medical fellow,” he said. “Only for
him——”
“O, only for him,” said Mr Power, “it might have been a case of seven
days, without the option of a fine.”
“Yes, yes,” said Mr Kernan, trying to remember. “I remember now there
was a policeman. Decent young fellow, he seemed. How did it happen at
all?”
“It happened that you were peloothered, Tom,” said Mr Cunningham
gravely.
“True bill,” said Mr Kernan, equally gravely.
“I suppose you squared the constable, Jack,” said Mr M’Coy.
Mr Power did not relish the use of his Christian name. He was not
straight-laced, but he could not forget that Mr M’Coy had recently made
a crusade in search of valises and portmanteaus to enable Mrs M’Coy to
fulfil imaginary engagements in the country. More than he resented the
fact that he had been victimised he resented such low playing of the
game. He answered the question, therefore, as if Mr Kernan had asked
it.
The narrative made Mr Kernan indignant. He was keenly conscious of his
citizenship, wished to live with his city on terms mutually honourable
and resented any affront put upon him by those whom he called country
bumpkins.
“Is this what we pay rates for?” he asked. “To feed and clothe these
ignorant bostooms ... and they’re nothing else.”
Mr Cunningham laughed. He was a Castle official only during office
hours.
“How could they be anything else, Tom?” he said.
He assumed a thick provincial accent and said in a tone of command:
“65, catch your cabbage!”
Everyone laughed. Mr M’Coy, who wanted to enter the conversation by any
door, pretended that he had never heard the story. Mr Cunningham said:
“It is supposed—they say, you know—to take place in the depot where
they get these thundering big country fellows, omadhauns, you know, to
drill. The sergeant makes them stand in a row against the wall and hold
up their plates.”
He illustrated the story by grotesque gestures.
“At dinner, you know. Then he has a bloody big bowl of cabbage before
him on the table and a bloody big spoon like a shovel. He takes up a
wad of cabbage on the spoon and pegs it across the room and the poor
devils have to try and catch it on their plates: 65, _catch your
cabbage_.”
Everyone laughed again: but Mr Kernan was somewhat indignant still. He
talked of writing a letter to the papers.
“These yahoos coming up here,” he said, “think they can boss the
people. I needn’t tell you, Martin, what kind of men they are.”
Mr Cunningham gave a qualified assent.
“It’s like everything else in this world,” he said. “You get some bad
ones and you get some good ones.”
“O yes, you get some good ones, I admit,” said Mr Kernan, satisfied.
“It’s better to have nothing to say to them,” said Mr M’Coy. “That’s my
opinion!”
Mrs Kernan entered the room and, placing a tray on the table, said:
“Help yourselves, gentlemen.”
Mr Power stood up to officiate, offering her his chair. She declined
it, saying she was ironing downstairs, and, after having exchanged a
nod with Mr Cunningham behind Mr Power’s back, prepared to leave the
room. Her husband called out to her:
“And have you nothing for me, duckie?”
“O, you! The back of my hand to you!” said Mrs Kernan tartly.
Her husband called after her:
“Nothing for poor little hubby!”
He assumed such a comical face and voice that the distribution of the
bottles of stout took place amid general merriment.
The gentlemen drank from their glasses, set the glasses again on the
table and paused. Then Mr Cunningham turned towards Mr Power and said
casually:
“On Thursday night, you said, Jack.”
“Thursday, yes,” said Mr Power.
“Righto!” said Mr Cunningham promptly.
“We can meet in M’Auley’s,” said Mr M’Coy. “That’ll be the most
convenient place.”
“But we mustn’t be late,” said Mr Power earnestly, “because it is sure
to be crammed to the doors.”
“We can meet at half-seven,” said Mr M’Coy.
“Righto!” said Mr Cunningham.
“Half-seven at M’Auley’s be it!”
There was a short silence. Mr Kernan waited to see whether he would be
taken into his friends’ confidence. Then he asked:
“What’s in the wind?”
“O, it’s nothing,” said Mr Cunningham. “It’s only a little matter that
we’re arranging about for Thursday.”
“The opera, is it?” said Mr Kernan.
“No, no,” said Mr Cunningham in an evasive tone, “it’s just a little
... spiritual matter.”
“O,” said Mr Kernan.
There was silence again. Then Mr Power said, point blank:
“To tell you the truth, Tom, we’re going to make a retreat.”
“Yes, that’s it,” said Mr Cunningham, “Jack and I and M’Coy here—we’re
all going to wash the pot.”
He uttered the metaphor with a certain homely energy and, encouraged by
his own voice, proceeded:
“You see, we may as well all admit we’re a nice collection of
scoundrels, one and all. I say, one and all,” he added with gruff
charity and turning to Mr Power. “Own up now!”
“I own up,” said Mr Power.
“And I own up,” said Mr M’Coy.
“So we’re going to wash the pot together,” said Mr Cunningham.
A thought seemed to strike him. He turned suddenly to the invalid and
said:
“D’ye know what, Tom, has just occurred to me? You might join in and
we’d have a four-handed reel.”
“Good idea,” said Mr Power. “The four of us together.”
Mr Kernan was silent. The proposal conveyed very little meaning to his
mind but, understanding that some spiritual agencies were about to
concern themselves on his behalf, he thought he owed it to his dignity
to show a stiff neck. He took no part in the conversation for a long
while but listened, with an air of calm enmity, while his friends
discussed the Jesuits.
“I haven’t such a bad opinion of the Jesuits,” he said, intervening at
length. “They’re an educated order. I believe they mean well too.”
“They’re the grandest order in the Church, Tom,” said Mr Cunningham,
with enthusiasm. “The General of the Jesuits stands next to the Pope.”
“There’s no mistake about it,” said Mr M’Coy, “if you want a thing well
done and no flies about it you go to a Jesuit. They’re the boyos have
influence. I’ll tell you a case in point....”
“The Jesuits are a fine body of men,” said Mr Power.
“It’s a curious thing,” said Mr Cunningham, “about the Jesuit Order.
Every other order of the Church had to be reformed at some time or
other but the Jesuit Order was never once reformed. It never fell
away.”
“Is that so?” asked Mr M’Coy.
“That’s a fact,” said Mr Cunningham. “That’s history.”
“Look at their church, too,” said Mr Power. “Look at the congregation
they have.”
“The Jesuits cater for the upper classes,” said Mr M’Coy.
“Of course,” said Mr Power.
“Yes,” said Mr Kernan. “That’s why I have a feeling for them. It’s some
of those secular priests, ignorant, bumptious——”
“They’re all good men,” said Mr Cunningham, “each in his own way. The
Irish priesthood is honoured all the world over.”
“O yes,” said Mr Power.
“Not like some of the other priesthoods on the continent,” said Mr
M’Coy, “unworthy of the name.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” said Mr Kernan, relenting.
“Of course I’m right,” said Mr Cunningham. “I haven’t been in the world
all this time and seen most sides of it without being a judge of
character.”
The gentlemen drank again, one following another’s example. Mr Kernan
seemed to be weighing something in his mind. He was impressed. He had a
high opinion of Mr Cunningham as a judge of character and as a reader
of faces. He asked for particulars.
“O, it’s just a retreat, you know,” said Mr Cunningham. “Father Purdon
is giving it. It’s for business men, you know.”
“He won’t be too hard on us, Tom,” said Mr Power persuasively.
“Father Purdon? Father Purdon?” said the invalid.
“O, you must know him, Tom,” said Mr Cunningham stoutly. “Fine jolly
fellow! He’s a man of the world like ourselves.”
“Ah, ... yes. I think I know him. Rather red face; tall.”
“That’s the man.”
“And tell me, Martin.... Is he a good preacher?”
“Munno.... It’s not exactly a sermon, you know. It’s just kind of a
friendly talk, you know, in a common-sense way.”
Mr Kernan deliberated. Mr M’Coy said:
“Father Tom Burke, that was the boy!”
“O, Father Tom Burke,” said Mr Cunningham, “that was a born orator. Did
you ever hear him, Tom?”
“Did I ever hear him!” said the invalid, nettled. “Rather! I heard
him....”
“And yet they say he wasn’t much of a theologian,” said Mr Cunningham.
“Is that so?” said Mr M’Coy.
“O, of course, nothing wrong, you know. Only sometimes, they say, he
didn’t preach what was quite orthodox.”
“Ah! ... he was a splendid man,” said Mr M’Coy.
“I heard him once,” Mr Kernan continued. “I forget the subject of his
discourse now. Crofton and I were in the back of the ... pit, you know
... the——”
“The body,” said Mr Cunningham.
“Yes, in the back near the door. I forget now what.... O yes, it was on
the Pope, the late Pope. I remember it well. Upon my word it was
magnificent, the style of the oratory. And his voice! God! hadn’t he a
voice! _The Prisoner of the Vatican_, he called him. I remember Crofton
saying to me when we came out——”
“But he’s an Orangeman, Crofton, isn’t he?” said Mr Power.
“‘Course he is,” said Mr Kernan, “and a damned decent Orangeman too. We
went into Butler’s in Moore Street—faith, I was genuinely moved, tell
you the God’s truth—and I remember well his very words. _Kernan_, he
said, _we worship at different altars_, he said, _but our belief is the
same_. Struck me as very well put.”
“There’s a good deal in that,” said Mr Power. “There used always to be
crowds of Protestants in the chapel where Father Tom was preaching.”
“There’s not much difference between us,” said Mr M’Coy.
“We both believe in——”
He hesitated for a moment.
“... in the Redeemer. Only they don’t believe in the Pope and in the
mother of God.”
“But, of course,” said Mr Cunningham quietly and effectively, “our
religion is _the_ religion, the old, original faith.”
“Not a doubt of it,” said Mr Kernan warmly.
Mrs Kernan came to the door of the bedroom and announced:
“Here’s a visitor for you!”
“Who is it?”
“Mr Fogarty.”
“O, come in! come in!”
A pale oval face came forward into the light. The arch of its fair
trailing moustache was repeated in the fair eyebrows looped above
pleasantly astonished eyes. Mr Fogarty was a modest grocer. He had
failed in business in a licensed house in the city because his
financial condition had constrained him to tie himself to second-class