“The other day,” a priest next door to me began, “I was in Talbot Street at the time of that shooting. You remember?” “I remember,” said a woman, dropping her cigarette into her saucer. “Yes, do go on.” “I was in the pork butcher’s shop. As a matter of fact, a bullet nearly got me in there. Quite near enough. I haven’t got the sawdust out of my pants yet, I hugged the floor so close. I went out as soon as it was safe. The D.M.Ps. had gone; you know the way they go. One of the boys was stretched in the middle of the road. There wasn’t much life left in him, not enough to suffer. I knelt down beside him, and the crowd drifted back. A Tommy was standing near, with his hands on his rifle and his tin hat on his head. He wasn’t taking any notice of me. There were other wounded people. All of a sudden an old beggar woman shouldered her way through the crowd to the Tommy. ‘Och,’ sez she, ‘take that tin lid off iv ye while his riverince is saying his prayers.’” Some one leant above me with a jug of cream. “Cream?” He poured cream into my cup and sat down by my side with the jug in his hand. “What a life we lead,” he said. “Have you been raided yet?” “Yes, not so very long ago.” “Did they take anything?” “Our breakfast, and a copy of Balzac’s ‘Droll Stories.’ But they were a very decent lot.” “You were lucky. They are light-fingered gentlemen as a rule.” “I expect some of those stories aren’t true.” “Not true!” exclaimed another man. “My dear lady, I know a family near Cork who are constantly raided by the Black-and-Tans. The same man is always in charge. Just before Christmas he called upon them with a revolver in each hand and said, ‘I’ve called for my Christmas box. Make the cheque a decent one, as I’ve had a lot of trouble with this house.’” Everybody laughed. “I know two old ladies,” said somebody else, “Unionists by the way. One night at dinner time a party of officers arrived and captured the house. The man in charge told them there was a man on the roof; but he told them not to be disturbed, and to go on with dinner. He came back after a little, apologised, and said he’d made a mistake. They discovered afterwards that he had cleared the house of everything valuable.” “They’ve got splendid opportunities, of course,” said my friend, balancing the cream jug on the end of the sofa. “I don’t mind looting so much as man-handling. I can tell you some of the boys get a bad time when they are interrogated.” I swallowed my tea reflectively. “There are cases of torture that we never hear of,” said a new woman, drawing close. “I know of several cases in the country where the boys were caught, rolled in barbed wire, then flung on the ground, and the Black-and-Tans jumped on them!” “They must have got sore feet,” I suggested.