We did not go very far though we were out for nearly two hours. The streets were filled with armed men and everybody we met challenged us. The police were the hardest to get rid of. They were no doubt soured by the treatment they received in Belfast. Accustomed to be regarded with awe by rural malefactors and denounced in flaming periods, of a kind highly gratifying to their self-importance, by political leaders, they could not understand a people who did not mention them in speeches but threatened their lives with paving stones. This had been their previous experience of Belfast and they were naturally suspicious of any stray wayfarers whom they met. They were not impressed when Bland said he was a newspaper reporter. They did not seem to care whether he believed or disbelieved the Apostles' Creed. One party of them actually arrested us and only a ready lie of Bland's saved us from spending an uncomfortable night. He said, to my absolute amazement, that we were officials of an exalted kind, sent down by the Local Government Board to hold a sworn inquiry into the condition of Belfast. This struck me at the time as an outrageously silly story, but it was really a rather good one to tell. The Irish police are accustomed to sworn inquiries as one of the last resorts of harassed Governments. It seemed to the sergeant quite natural that somebody should be in Belfast to hold one. We came across McConkey with his machine gun at a street corner. He had got a new crew to pull it along. I suppose the first men were utterly exhausted. But McConkey himself was quite fresh. Enthusiasm for the weapon on which he had spent the savings of a lifetime kept him from fatigue. The experience was immensely interesting; but I began to get tired after a time. The necessity for explaining what we were--or rather what we were not--at the end of every fifty yards, began to make me nervous. Bland's spirits kept up, but Bland is a war correspondent and accustomed to being harried by military authorities. I am not. It was a comfort to me when we ran into Bob Power's regiment outside the Ulster Hall. "Bob," I said, "I want to get back to my hotel. I wish you'd see me safe, chaperone me, convoy me, or whatever you call the thing I want you to do." Bland tugged at my sleeve. "Get him to take me to the post-office," he said. "I'll have another go at getting a telegram through." "Bob," I said, "this is my friend Mr. Bland. He's a war correspondent and he wants to get to the post-office." My return to the hotel was simple enough. The police kept out of the way of Bob's men. The other soldiers let him and his regiment pass without challenge. Bland, faithful to his professional duties, poured out questions as we went along. "How's it managed?" he said. "Why aren't you at each other's throats?" "So far as we're concerned," said Bob, "there's nothing to fight about. We don't object to the soldiers or the police. We're loyal men." "Oh, are you?" said Bland. "Quite."