“At one minute to the hour I sat back and put up the sign, and a minute later a man stalked through the door from the street. He took in the room in a single aimless glance, and, still walking forward, answered my sign. He smiled, I rose, and we met as if we were friends expecting each other. We made the third sign, the one that is made with the foot, and he asked the passwords and I answered. This was while we were sitting down. He asked me to have a drink; but I wasn’t having any. “‘Then come out,’ he said, ‘for a walk about.’ He made a motion of his finger in the air like a man walking about. He spoke very quietly, and asked questions with his eyebrows. “We left the lounge and went down the hotel steps. “My ‘cousin’ was between thirty and thirty-five. He was tall and very lean. His chest was narrow, and sometimes he looked delicate, and at other times as tough as whipcord. His face was as keen as a wild animal’s. His black hair grew backwards. He was inclined to walk on his toes, and he trod like a cat. You never heard him coming and going. “He brought me here, and we walked and talked.” 47 jerked his thumb to the left. “Up that end is a waterfall which feeds the lakes, and all the time we seemed to be getting to that or leaving it. We watched the children if we were disturbed, or talked about the birds, and my ‘cousin’--I can’t give you his name or number--was mad on them, and had a cupboard at home full of pot plants.” “Did he tell you how things are going?” I broke in. 47 pondered this. “He thought there was a lot of work to be done; but the situation was getting fairly well in hand. The people over here are fearfully hampered by the powers that be.” 47 looked carefully round the gardens without turning his head. “Listen to this,” he said, pulling some papers out of his pocket. “Here are one or two choice little extracts from the rules of the Cumann na mBan, the woman’s branch of the Irish Republican Army, of which Countess Markievicz is the head. The Countess is said to go about with an armed escort, and to carry a bag with a gun inside. The spring of the bag fires the gun. It may be a legend. Here we are. “As a start, members have to subscribe to the following declaration: ‘I, mindful of my high responsibilities as an Irishwoman, am resolved to do my part in the service of the Republic. I enrol myself as a member of the Cumann na mBan. I bind myself by personal attention to duty as a member of this branch to aim at the highest degree of efficiency which alone will make us a valuable unit in the Republican Army. I pledge myself to keep perfectly secret all matters connected with the Irish Volunteers and Cumann na mBan,’ etc. “This is what I am after: Rule 11. ‘That Cumann na mBan should be instructed in the use of firearms.’ Rule 12. ‘That Cumann na mBan include detective work and the acquiring of information about the enemy among its activities.’