'No more than purses out of sows' ears,' returned Cassidy, with a merry twinkle. 'No, councillor, that we never will. But we'll wheedle a few aristocrats like your honour, whose blue blood shall mingle with our muddy stuff. When the day dawns, you and a few like yourself shall lead the boys to victory.' Terence looked annoyed, but said nothing; while Cassidy and the others scanned his face narrowly. He was not affiliated to the society, nor had the remotest ambition of becoming so; for he knew that it behoved not one of his order to join in such movements as this. Yet there was a fascination for him in its doings, which kept him dangling upon its outskirts. Some of his most valued friends were enrolled on the list of United Irishmen, and he knew well how Doreen was praying for their success. So he attended the supper-parties sometimes in his purposeless way, and they permitted him to do so freely, despite the maxim that in troublous times half-friends are no friends. They knew, or thought they knew, that he was the soul of honour, who would never betray a confidence; and hoped, encouraged by Cassidy, that some day he might be cajoled or stung into their ranks, which would be a feather in their cap indeed; for to be led by a Crosbie of Ennishowen would give them a prestige at once such as in these democratic days we can hardly realise. And Terence, seeing through the simple scheme (for he was sharp enough, though lazy), was flattered by their confidence. Yet for all that he promised himself to hold aloof from active co-operation with hot-pated friends who made mountains out of mole-hills. He had no intention of heading the forlorn hope of a misguided rabblement who would fly helter-skelter before the first puff of cannon smoke. So he prudently refrained from picking up the gauntlet, and listened to the giant, who was delivered of an idea. 'I've a notion!' cried Cassidy, thumping the table till the glasses rang again. 'Be cool now!' cautioned Tom Emmett. 'You are as dangerous as a powder-magazine.'