"That kind of person makes me foam at the mouth," Henry muttered to Gilbert "The Irish people aren't any purer than any other race. It's all bunkum, this talk about their 'innate purity.' If you clap the population into gaol, you can keep them 'pure,' in act anyhow, and if the priests won't let the sexes mingle openly, they can get up a spurious purity just like that. If a girl gets into trouble in Ireland, she goes to the priest and confesses, and the priest takes jolly good care that the man marries her. That's why the rate of illegitimacy is so low. And anyhow, the bulk of the people are agricultural, and country people are more continent than any other people. It's the same in England, but the English don't go about bleating of their 'innate purity.' I tell you, Gilbert, the trouble with this country is self-consciousness...." "Home Rule ought to cure that!" said Gilbert. "That's why I'm a Home Ruler," Henry replied. "If you chaff these people, they get angry and want to fight. If anybody were to get up in a public hall and say about the Irish one-quarter of the things that Bernard Shaw says in public about the English, the audience would flay him alive and wreck the building. They're too little to stand chaff easily. It takes a big people to bear criticism good-naturedly.... All the same, Gilbert, your damned countrymen are to blame for all this!" "I know that," said Gilbert, "but your damned countrymen seem determined to remain like it!" 8 Mr. Quinn and Henry had talked of Ireland and of John Marsh, after John had returned to Dublin. "Sometimes," said Mr. Quinn, "I think that the best thing for Ireland would be to let the two sides fight. That might bring them together. One damned good scrap ... and they might shake hands and become reconciled. There was as much antagonism and bitterness between the North and South in America as there is between the North and South in Ireland ... and on the whole, I think the Civil War did a lot of good!" "It's a damned queer country, Henry!" he went on, lying down and drawing the bedclothes up about his neck. "Damned queer!" "I suppose they all know what they're up to," he continued, looking intently at the ceiling. "But I don't!" "Are you comfortable, father?" Henry asked, bending anxiously over Mr. Quinn who had a grey, tired look on his face. "Yes, thank you, Henry, I'm ... I'm comfortable enough!" He turned his head slightly and gazed at Henry for a few moments without speaking. Then he smiled at him. "I tried hard to make an Irishman out of you, Henry," he said. "I am an Irishman, father!" "Aye, but a _very_ Irishman. Many's a time I wonder what you are. What are you, Henry? You're not English an' you're not Irish. What are you?" "I don't know, father. I'm very Irish when I'm in England, and I'm very English when I'm here!" "That's no good, Henry. All you do is to make both sides angry. You should be something all the time!" "I try to be fair," said Henry.