47 shrugged his shoulders. “Not really. One feels the usual regret at leaving places associated with pretty tumultuous hours in one’s life.” He turned and said with feeling, “I have only to stop at any street corner and those dark Christmas days come back. By gad, they wore one out while they lasted; but everything is over in the end. I’m glad to be off, though one makes acquaintances, friends even, that a fellow is sorry to lose, even on a job of this sort.” “You can do your job and make friends?” I asked. “Why not?” A moment after he said, “You get used to keeping your work entirely apart, a sort of falcon sitting on your wrist. You make friends like anybody else; but this hooded bird is waiting ready for the game when you start it. Or there’s some presence behind your chair, like the slave at a Roman general’s triumph, telling you you are a servant, and greater than you is the Empire you serve.” I nodded. “No,” he exclaimed, “I wouldn’t stay another day. My job here is done. I want to get to something ahead. I’m like that now. The wandering fever has got me for keeps. We’ll have a spell when we get over, we’re looking forward to it, and it’ll be damn fine for a few weeks. We’ll go and watch summer turn into autumn somewhere, and we’ll be content enough until the old thing happens again. It’s happened too often not to expect it once more. One will begin by getting restless and talking about a change of scene, then one will want to know exactly what is going on, the truth, not the stuff the newspapers dish you out. Then I shall begin wondering when I shall hear from headquarters.” “And about Christmas time,” I interrupted, “when there’s nothing but wind and rain, you will be working again, homeless, friendless, the whole catalogue of lesses. I sailed round Cape Horn once in a four-masted barque for the fun of the thing. It’s the last thing I ever mean to do again. All the men were like me, thanking God when they saw land. But most of them had only been a few days ashore after six months at sea when they had had their fill of land. I left them disappearing into the wind and the dark.” A few minutes later the train had taken them away from us and we were on the way home. Weeks passed with affairs still in the balance, and we began to talk of going. Public interest in the negotiations never abated. Most days of the week a patient crowd waited outside the Dublin Mansion House to see the Republican leaders come and go. Summer was drawing to an end, and the days were often wet; but the crowd never lost patience, and stood in lines marshalled by Republican police, who seemed as numerous as crows. There were constant rumours of a break in the Downing Street negotiations; but the longer the truce continued the more unready people were to return to old conditions.