of the managers of one or other of the Catholic orphanages.  When I was Secretary of Father Nugent’s Boys’ Refuge, he brought one of these waifs to the Brother Director, and claimed admittance for him.  The place was full, the Brother said—­it could not be done.  Without another word Kehoe left the child on the doorstep, and simply saying, “Good-night,” left Brother Tertullian sorely perplexed, but with no alternative but to take the child in.

Now, Laurence Kehoe must have known that I was a notorious suspect—­for it was his duty to know—­but we were good friends, never, however, talking politics by any possible chance.  I cannot, of course, state for certain how it was, but the reader, from what I am going to describe, may possibly come to the conclusion that Detective Superintendent Kehoe may have shut both eyes and ears in my particular case.

To Rickard Burke was entrusted the critical and dangerous task of buying and distributing arms for the revolutionary movement. Exit Rickard Burke, in the usual way, through the prison gate. Enter Arthur Forrester, who, in due course, found his way also—­though but for a short time—­within prison walls.  Then, following in quick succession, came Michael Davitt, engaged in the same task as Burke and Forrester.

Forrester was a young man of great eloquence, and, like his mother and sister, a poet.  Mrs. Ellen Forrester’s “Widow’s Message to her Son” is, I think, one of the finest and most heart-stirring poems we possess.  I have often listened with pleasure to Arthur Forrester, when he used to come to address the “boys” in Liverpool.  On one of those occasions Michael Davitt was with him, a modest, unassuming young man, with but little to say, although he was to make afterwards a more important figure in the world than his friend.  Forrester was a young fellow full of pluck, and made a desperate resistance when, a boy, he was first arrested in Dublin.

One night, just before Christmas, 1869, he left fifty revolvers with me.  Early next morning I read in a daily paper that he had been arrested the previous night in a Temperance Hotel where he had been staying.  There were no arms found upon him or among his belongings.  He had left them with me;—­indeed, as I read the account of his arrest, they were still in my possession.  You may depend upon it I quickly got them into safer hands than my own.  Some compromising documents were found in Forrester’s possession, including a certain letter with which Michael Davitt’s name was connected.  This same letter was brought forward in evidence some years afterwards, in the famous “Times Forgeries Commission,” with a view to showing that the Irish leaders had incited to murder.  As I expected, I was not long without a visit from Laurence Kehoe’s lieutenants.  Horn and Cousens, detective officers, called upon me to make enquiries about the revolvers which, they said, “Arthur had left with me.”  I need scarcely say they gained nothing by their visitation.  I fully expected that the matter would not end here, and that I was likely to find myself in the dock along with Forrester.