“Wait till I get through,” said Paddy.  “Then I’ll attend to you.”

That, said the trader, was a physical threat!  So the gombeener’s friend, the magistrate, threw Paddy into jail.  Paddy went to prison full of fear that dissension might be sown in the society’s ranks.  But on coming out he discovered not only that he had won the election but that a committee was waiting to present him with a gorgeous French gilt clock, and that fires, just as on St. John’s eve, were blazing on the mountains.

But the trader took another friend of his aside.  This time it was the village priest.  Bad dances, he said, were going on of nights in Templecrone hall.  What was Paddy’s surprise on a Sunday in the windswept chapel by the sea to hear his beloved hall denounced as a place of sin.  Paddy knew the people would not come any more.

Then, the great inspiration.  Paddy remembered how his mother used to try to help with her knitting.  He saw girls at spinning wheels or looms working full eight hours a day and earning only $1.25 to $1.50 a week.  So with permission of the society, Paddy had two long tables placed in the entertainment hall, and along the edges of the tables he had the latest type of knitting machines screwed.  Soon there were about 300 girls working on a seven and a half hour day.  They were paid by the piece, and it was not long before they were getting wages that ran from $17.50 to $5.25 a week.  Incidentally, Mr. Gallagher, as manager, gave himself only $10.00 a week.

When I saw Patrick Gallagher in Dungloe, he was dressed in a blue suit and a soft gray cap, and looked not unlike the keen sort of business men one sees on an ocean liner.  And indeed he gave the impression that if he had not been a co-operationist for Ireland, he might well have been a capitalist in America.  He took me up the main street of Dungloe into easily the busiest of the white plastered shops.  He made plain the hints of growing industry.  The bacon cured in Dungloe.  The egg-weighing—­since weighing was introduced the farmers worked to increase the size of the eggs and the first year increased their sales $15,000 worth.  The rentable farm machines.

“Come out into this old cabin and meet our baker,” Paddy continued when we went out the rear of the store.  “We began to get bread from Londonderry, but the old Lough Swilly road is too uncertain.  See the ancient Scotch oven—­the coals are placed in the oven part and when they are still hot they are scooped out and the bread is put in their place.  Interesting, isn’t it?  But we are going to get a modern slide oven.”

After viewing the orchard and the beehives beneath the trees, I remarked on the size of the plant, and its suitability for his purpose.  He said: 

“It used to belong to the gombeen man.”