“Oh—that was nothing. I’m fairly well used to pain when my stupid attacks come on, though that had certainly been a stiff one. But—well, I think I was beginning to lose heart. My physical disadvantages have always been in my way, naturally; but I have managed to keep them in the background to a certain extent and live a man’s life, even in a second-rate fashion. But since the war began I couldn’t do it. I was so useless—a cumberer of the ground, when every man was needed. My people have always been fighters, until——until I came, to blot the record.” “You have no right to say that,” said David Linton, sharply. “You did more than thousands of men are doing.” “I did what I could. But I wanted to fight, man—to fight! If you knew how I envied every private I saw marching through London! every lucky youngster with a sound heart and a pair of straight shoulders. I had always set my teeth, before, and got through a man’s work, somehow or other. But here was something I couldn’t do—they wouldn’t have me. And even over what work I was able to tackle, I went to pieces. When I came back to Ireland I felt like rubbish, flung out of the way—out of the way of men who were men.” “It’s not fair to feel like that,” David Linton said. “And it is not true.” “Well—you have all helped me to believe that perhaps I am not altogether on the dust-heap. You came when I was desperate; every day in Rathcullen was making me worse. I couldn’t go into the picture-gallery; the fighting-men on the walls seemed to look at me in scorn to see to what a poor thing the old house had come down. And then you all came, and you didn’t seem to notice that anything was wrong with me. You made me one of you—even those youngsters, full of all the energy and laughter and youth of that big young country of yours. They have made a chum of me: I haven’t laughed for years as I’ve laughed in the last fortnight. And I’m fitter than I’ve been for years—I’ve forgotten to think of myself, and when you all go I also am going back, to work. There must be work, even for me.” “For you! Why, you’re a young man, full of energy, even if you can’t have active service,” said David Linton. “And I am a grey old man, but there’s work for me. Don’t think that you have no job, because you can’t get the job you like; that’s an easy attitude to adopt. Every man can find his job if he looks for it with his eyes open.” “Well, you have helped mine to open,” O’Neill said. “I was miserable because I had hitched my wagon to a star and had found I couldn’t drive it. The old servants—bless their kind hearts!—were purring over me and pitying me, and I was feeling raw; and then you all walked into my life and declined to notice that I was a useless dwarf——” “Because you aren’t,” said the other man, sharply. “Don’t talk utter nonsense!” O’Neill laughed. “Well—I won’t forget,” he said. “But I am grateful; only I sometimes wonder if I ask for too much of your time. Do you think the youngsters are bored?”