‘Both of them are Saxon.’

‘Not a bit of it!’

‘Look at the clay.’

’I look, and I tell you, Philip, it’s of a piece with your lukewarmness for the country, or you wouldn’t talk like that.’

’There is no record of pipe manufactories in Ireland at the period you name.’

’There is:  and the jealousy of rulers caused them to be destroyed by decrees, if you want historical evidence.’

‘Your opposition to the Saxon would rob him of his pipe, Con!’

’Let him go to the deuce with as many pipes as he can carry; but he shan’t have this one.’

‘Not a toss-up of difference is to be seen in the pair.’

’Use your eyes.  The Irish bowl is broken, and the English has an inch longer stem!’

‘O the Irish bowl is broken!’ Philip sang.

‘You’ve the heart of a renegade-foreigner not to see it!’ cried the captain.

Patrick intervened saying:  ‘I suspect they’re Dutch.’

’Well, and that ‘s possible.’  Captain Con scrutinised them to calm his temper:  ‘there’s a Dutchiness in the shape.’

He offered Philip the compromise of ‘Dutch’ rather plaintively, but it was not accepted, and the pipes would have mingled their fragments on the hearthstone if Patrick had not stayed his arm, saying:  ‘Don’t hurt them.’

‘And I won’t,’ the captain shook his hand gratefully.

’But will Philip O’Donnell tell me that Ireland should lie down with England on the terms of a traveller obliged to take a bedfellow?  Come!  He hasn’t an answer.  Put it to him, and you pose him.  But he ’ll not stir, though he admits the antagonism.  And Ireland is asked to lie down with England on a couch blessed by the priest!  Not she.  Wipe out our grievances, and then we’ll begin to talk of policy.  Good Lord!—­love?  The love of Ireland for the conquering country will be the celebrated ceremony in the concluding chapter previous to the inauguration of the millennium.  Thousands of us are in a starving state at home this winter, Patrick.  And it’s not the fault of England?—­landlordism ’s not?  Who caused the ruin of all Ireland’s industries?  You might as well say that it ’s the fault of the poor beggar to go limping and hungry because his cruel master struck him a blow to cripple him.  We don’t want half and half doctoring, and it’s too late in the day for half and half oratory.  We want freedom, and we’ll have it, and we won’t leave it to the Saxon to think about giving it.  And if your brother Philip won’t accept this blazing fine offer, then I will, and you’ll behold me in a new attitude.  The fellow yawns!  You don’t know me yet, Philip.  They tell us over here we ought to be satisfied.  Fall upon our list of wrongs, and they set to work yawning.  You can only move them by popping at them over hedges and roaring on platforms.  They’re incapable of understanding a complaint a yard beyond their noses.  The Englishman has an island mind, and when he’s out of it he’s at sea.’