It may have been this threat which overcame Major Kent’s reluctance. It may have been a natural curiosity to find out what trouble Gallagher had got into with Mr. Billing: It may simply have been Dr. O’Grady’s force of character which vanquished him. He allowed himself to be led away. CHAPTER V “Now Thady,” said Dr. O’Grady, “tell me exactly what happened and what the trouble is.” “It was on account of my mentioning young Kerrigan’s wife,” said Gallagher. “Young Kerrigan hasn’t got a wife,” said the Major. “Better begin at the beginning,” said Dr. O’Grady. “If we knew how you arrived at whatever statement you made about young Kerrigan’s wife we’d be in a better position to judge what has to be done about it, Start off now at the moment when you went away in the motor-car. You went to Doyle’s farm, I suppose, as I told you, so as to show Mr. Billing the General’s birthplace.” “In the latter end we got there,” said Gallagher, “but at the first go off I took him along the road past the workhouse.” “That wasn’t quite the shortest route,” said Dr. O’Grady. “In fact you began by going in exactly the opposite direction.” “After that we went round by Barney’s Hill,” said Gallagher, “and along the bohireen by the side of the bog, me telling him the turns he ought to take.” “What on earth did you go there for,” said the Major, “if you wanted to get to Doyle’s farm?” “When we’d passed the bog,” said Gallagher, “we took a twist round, like as we might be trying to cut across to the Dunbeg Road.” “You seem to have gone pretty well all around the town,” said Dr. O’Grady. “I suppose you enjoyed driving about in a large motor. Was that it?” “It was not,” said Gallagher, “but I was in dread to take him to Doyle’s farm not knowing what questions he might be asking about the General when we got there. I’d be glad now, doctor, if you’d tell me who the General was, for it’s troublesome not knowing.” “There isn’t time,” said Dr. O’Grady, “to go into long explanations simply to satisfy your morbid curiosity. Go on with your story. What happened when you did get to the place? I suppose you got there in the end?” “We did of course,” said Gallagher, “and I showed him the ruin of the little houseen, the same as you told me to. ‘And was it there,’ says he, ‘that the great General, the immortal founder of the liberties of Bolivia, first saw the light?’ ‘It was,’ says I. So he took a leap out of the motor-car and stood in front of the old house with his hat in his hand. So I told him about the way the landlords had treated the people of this country in times past, and the way we are meaning to serve them out as soon as we have Home Rule, which is as good as got, only for the blackguards of Orangemen up in the North. I told him——” “I’m sure you did,” said Dr. O’Grady, “but you needn’t go over all that to us, particularly as the Major hates that kind of talk.”