secure the thorough efficiency of the liquidation. You will reorganise the scheme efficiently. You will legislate its second bankruptcy efficiently. You will get rid of its original shareholders efficiently, after efficiently ruining them. And you will finally profit very efficiently by getting that hotel for a few shillings in the pound. Besides these efficient operations, you will foreclose your mortgages most efficiently. You will drive Haffigan to America very efficiently. You will find a use for Barney Doran’s foul mouth and bullying temper by employing him to slave-drive your labourers very efficiently. And when at last this poor desolate countryside becomes a busy mint in which we shall all slave to make money for you, with our Polytechnic to teach us how to do it efficiently, and our library to fuddle the few imaginations your distilleries will spare, and our repaired Round Tower, with admission sixpence, and refreshments and penny-in-the-slot mutoscopes to make it interesting, then no doubt your English and American shareholders will spend all the money we make for them very efficiently in shooting and hunting, in operations for cancer and appendicitis, in gluttony and gambling; and you will devote what they save to fresh land-development schemes. For four wicked centuries the world has dreamt this foolish dream of efficiency. And the end is not yet. But the end will come.”[23] Which outburst, like the denunciation of the American millionaires by the preacher whom they pay for such services, excites no resentment, but rather applause. “Too true,” replies Mr. Broadbent, “only too true, and most eloquently put.” “He has made me feel a better man,” is the grateful verdict. “I feel now as I never did before, that I am right in devoting my life to the cause of Ireland. Come along and help me to choose the site for the new hotel.”