"They're fools," Henry thought, looking at them as they went wearily on, "but, by God, they're finer than the people who jeer at them. They ... they are serving something ... and these Don't-Care-a-Damners aren't serving anything!..." There was a man at his elbow who turned to him and said, "Them lads 'ud run like hell if you were to point a penny pop-gun at them! If a peeler was to take their names, they'd be shiverin' with fright. They'd fall out of their trousers with the terror'd be on them!" Henry did not answer. Indeed, it seemed incredible that there was any fight in them ... if he had been asked for his opinion, he might have said something similar to what this stranger had said to him ... but he hated to hear the man's disparagement, and so he did not make any answer to him. "I'd rather have them on my side than have him," he thought as he moved away, "with the stink of porter on him!" It sickened him to see the generosity and the youth walking in the company of the hopelessness of Ireland, training themselves in the means of killing. "If they'd put all that energy and enthusiasm into something that will preserve life and make it deeper and finer, nothing could prevail against them. If only John had more intellect and less emotion ... if Mineely and Connolly were less bitter!" He walked along Grafton Street, turning phrases over in his mind, angry phrases, bitter things that he would say to John Marsh when he met him. "What have young lads and girls to do with Hate and Death?" he said to himself, as if he were talking to Marsh. "You're perverting them from their purpose! You're robbing God of His due ... of the hope that fills His Heart with each generation!" "But it's no good talking to him ... he's too fond of spilling over. If he were like Yeats, content to love Ireland at a distance ... to 'arise and go now' no further than the Euston Road ... he might achieve something, and at all events, he'd be harmless!" He turned out of Grafton Street into Stephen's Green. "To-morrow," he said to himself, "I'll go to Fairyhouse!" And then he went to his Club. He was tired and sleepy, and soon after supper, he went to bed. 7 It was late when he awoke and so, feeling lazy after his day's climbing, he resolved that he would not go to the races. "I'll loaf about," he said, "and to-night I'll go to a theatre." There was a letter from Mary and one from Roger. "_Gerald Luke was killed in France last week, and so was Clifford Dartrey. Goeffrey Grant has been wounded badly. The Improved Tories have suffered heavily in the War...._" Roger wrote. When he had breakfasted, he left the Club and walked towards Sackville Street. He would go to the Abbey Theatre, he thought, and book a seat for the evening performance. There was an odd, bewildered look about the people who stood in groups in Sackville Street. "What's up?" Henry said to a bystander. "Begod," said the man, "I think there's a rebellion on. That's what this woman says anyway!"