I think that Father O’Flynn did not like these anecdotes. I suspected that he, the Canon, and probably O’Dowd were ultramontanes, and that Walsh was entirely indifferent. Certainly at this moment the Canon rose, and suggested a move upstairs, where we should find a fire more suitable for the January temperature; and we went. There was indeed a charming fire and a goodly array of comfortable chairs. I don’t know why it is, but after a good dinner the frail body seems to yearn for external heat: something to do with the gastric juices, I believe, but I never was good at animal physiology, though I examined in it when required. I settled myself with a sigh of relief in a huge arm-chair, and O’Dowd found a seat next me. We cast away the trifling cigarette, and betook ourselves to the businesslike pipe or cigar. Walsh and some others betook themselves at once to whist. We talked about Paris for some time, and then moved south. O’Dowd remarked that he believed I knew Rome. I told him how much and how little I knew of it, and for a time we talked of churches, and palaces, pictures, and music, and an abiding calm came over us. “I daresay you know,” said he, probably with some reference in his mind to what we had heard downstairs, “that you must not believe all you hear in Rome? They are very great in anecdotes: ‘_quid Romae faciam? mentiri nescio_,’ said Juvenal, but that was as a critic.” (Never before had I heard a priest quote Juvenal!) “Do you know the Gesù church at the foot of the Capitol, a terribly gusty place?” I knew that tawdry edifice, and I told him so, omitting the adjective. “And the story of the Devil and the North Wind? No? It is a typical Roman legend. The Devil and the North Wind one autumn evening were coming down from the Capitol, and they stopped outside the Gesù. Said Satan, ‘Just stop here a moment, while I go inside and say a prayer:’ and he went in, and the North Wind has ever since been waiting outside for him to come out.” Now I saw how Livy came to write his history. He was “nursed upon the selfsame” seven hills, and he would have liked that legend. Insensibly, in the comfort of the arm-chair and the fire, I began to translate the story into “Latin in the style of Livy,” that would have gladdened the heart of the Rev. E. C. W., sometime Fellow and Tutor of Balliol: “_Eodem anno jam autumnale equinoctium instabat et complura prodigia referebantur ta ... ta ..._” when O’Flynn woke me up with a start: “They were telling me in the boat,” he said, “about Father Hennessy and the Orangeman: have ye heard it? Hennessy was travelling to Dublin, and was saying his Office as he was in the carriage; and opposite him was a man from County Down. Soon after they left the station, the Orangeman leant across to Father Hennessy, in the middle of his Office, ye understand, and says, ‘_I_ wouldn’t go to Purgatory,’ says he.