“I think we may take it for granted, gentlemen,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that if we produce a creditable statue for the Lord-Lieutenant to unveil and give him a really gratifying illuminated address——” “The statue and the illuminated address would be all right,” said Doyle, “if there was any way of paying for them.” “And a bouquet,” said Dr. O’Grady; “and a good luncheon. If we do all that and make ourselves generally agreeable by means of Mary Ellen and in other ways the Lord-Lieutenant couldn’t very well refuse to give us a grant of Government money to build a pier.” “It’s likely he’d give it,” said Father McCormack, “it’s likely enough that he’d give it—if we——” “He couldn’t well not,” said Doyle, “after us giving him a lunch and all.” “If so be,” said Gallagher, “that he was to refuse at the latter end we’d have questions asked about him in Parliament; and believe you me that’s what he wouldn’t like. Them fellows is terrible afraid of the Irish Members. And they’ve a good right to be, for devil the finer set of men you’d see anywhere than what they are. There isn’t a thing goes wrong in the country but they’re ready to torment the life out of whoever might be responsible for the man that did it.” “Very well,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Now do we want a pier?” “We want the money,” said Doyle. “I don’t know,” said Father McCormack, “could we get the money without we’d build a pier when we’d got it.” “My point is,” said Dr. O’Grady, “that the pier itself, the actual stone structure sticking out into the sea, being no particular use to any one once it’s built——” “It’d be a public nuisance,” said the Major. “We can do very well with an inferior kind of pier,” said Dr. O’Grady. “What I mean to say is we might spend a little less than we’re actually given.” “What about the inspector they’d send down?” said Doyle. “Them inspectors,” said Gallagher, “is as thick about the country as fleas on a dog. Hardly ever a man would turn round without he’d have one of them asking him what he was doing it for.” For once Gallagher had spoken in a way that was acceptable to the other members of the committee. There was a general murmur of assent. Everyone present was more or less conscious of the enormous numbers of inspectors in Ireland. Even Major Kent, who had been in a bad temper all along, brightened up a little. “I was reading a paper the other day,” he said, “that 80 per cent, of the adult population of Leinster, Munster and Connacht, were paid by the Government to teach the other people how to get their livings, and to see that they did what they were told. That included schoolmasters.” “I shouldn’t wonder now,” said Father McCormack, “that those figures would be about right.” “It was only the week before last,” said Doyle, “that there was a man stopping in my hotel, a man that looked as if he was earning a comfortable salary, and he——”