From Trinity College windows and roof there was also sniping, but the Shelbourne Hotel riflemen must have seriously troubled the Volunteers in the Green.

As I went back I stayed a while in front of the hotel to count the shots that had struck the windows.  There were fourteen shots through the ground windows.  The holes were clean through, each surrounded by a star—­the bullets went through but did not crack the glass.  There were three places in which the windows had holes half a foot to a foot wide and high.  Here many rifles must have fired at the one moment.  It must have been as awkward inside the Shelbourne Hotel as it was inside the Green.

A lady who lived in Baggot Street said she had been up all night, and, with her neighbours, had supplied tea and bread to the soldiers who were lining the street.  The officer to whom she spoke had made two or three attacks to draw fire and estimate the Volunteers’ positions, numbers, &c., and he told her that he considered there were 3,000 well-armed Volunteers in the Green, and as he had only 1,000 soldiers, he could not afford to deliver a real attack, and was merely containing them.

Amiens Street station reported recaptured by the military; other stations are said to be still in the Volunteers’ possession.

The story goes that about twelve o’clock on Monday an English officer had marched into the Post Office and demanded two penny stamps from the amazed Volunteers who were inside.  He thought their uniforms were postal uniforms.  They brought him in, and he is probably still trying to get a perspective on the occurrence.  They had as prisoners in the Post Office a certain number of soldiers, and rumour had it that these men accommodated themselves quickly to duress, and were busily engaged peeling potatoes for the meal which they would partake of later on with the Volunteers.

Earlier in the day I met a wild individual who spat rumour as though his mouth were a machine gun or a linotype machine.  He believed everything he heard; and everything he heard became as by magic favourable to his hopes, which were violently anti-English.  One unfavourable rumour was instantly crushed by him with three stories which were favourable and triumphantly so.  He said the Germans had landed in three places.  One of these landings alone consisted of fifteen thousand men.  The other landings probably beat that figure.  The whole City of Cork was in the hands of the Volunteers, and, to that extent, might be said to be peaceful.  German warships had defeated the English, and their transports were speeding from every side.  The whole country was up, and the garrison was out-numbered by one hundred to one.  These Dublin barracks which had not been taken were now besieged and on the point of surrender.

I think this man created and winged every rumour that flew in Dublin, and he was the sole individual whom I heard definitely taking a side.  He left me, and, looking back, I saw him pouring his news into the ear of a gaping stranger whom he had arrested for the purpose.  I almost went back to hear would he tell the same tale or would he elaborate it into a new thing, for I am interested in the art of story-telling.