“Well, there’s ‘Fontenoy,’ of course that’s a ripper—­Well, I don’t know what you’ll all think, but I think this is a jolly good one,” he said with a renewal of defiance, and began to read, at first hurriedly, but gathering confidence and excitement as he went on: 

  “Did they dare, did they dare, to slay Owen Roe O’Neill? 
  Yes, they slew with poison, him they feared to meet with steel. 
  May God wither up their hearts!  May their blood cease to flow! 
  May they walk in living death, who poisoned Owen Roe! 
  We thought you would not die—­we were sure you would not go,
  And leave us in our utmost need to Cromwell’s cruel blow—­
  Sheep without a shepherd, when the snow shuts out the sky—­
  Oh!  Why did you leave us, Owen?  Why did you die?”

The Elder Statesmen listened in critical silence, while Larry, not without stumbles, stormed on through the eight verses of the poem.  When he had finished it, there was a pause.  The audience was impressed, even though they had no intention of admitting the fact.  Christian gave a tremendous sigh.  The contest for the defunct rabbit, that had been arrested, broke out again, fiercely, but with caution.  Then Richard said, dubiously: 

“Well, that’s all right, Larry—­I meant it’s jolly sad, and awfully good poetry, I’m sure—­but how on earth are you going to work a show out of it?  I can’t see—­”

“Unless,” interrupted Judith, thoughtfully, “unless we sort of acted it—?”

John, who loved “dressing up,” woke to life; even Richard began to see daylight.

“That’s not a bad notion, Judy!” he said briskly:  “bags I Cromwell!  Larry, you can be Owen what’s-his-name.”

Larry came down like a shot bird from the sphere of romance to which the poem had borne him.

“I hadn’t thought of any scheme,” he said, pulling himself together; “I only wanted to give you a kind of notion of the rotten way England’s always treated Ireland—­”

“But let’s!” cried Christian; “let’s act the whole book!”

Truisms are of their essence dull, but they must sometimes be submitted to, and the truism as to a book’s possible influence on the young and impressionable cannot here be avoided.  What it is that decides if the book is to stamp itself on the plastic mind, or if the mind is to assert itself and stamp on the book, is a detail that admits less easily of dogmatism.  The Companionage of Finn remained in being for but two periods of holiday.  Before the boys had returned to school, it had seen its best days; the scheme for an armed invasion of England had been abandoned, even the more matured project of storming Dublin Castle was set aside; by the end of the Christmas holidays it had been formally dissolved.