‘Arrah!’ he said, ’I wouldn’t moind the lague being hard on them who lives out of the counthry, spendin’ their cash on liquor and theatres in London; but what can they have agin us who stops at home, mindin’ our properties and riding our harses?’

This criticism of justice, as administered by the league, did not, however, seem to meet with the entire approval of those present.  Mr. Adair looked grave; he evidently thought it was based on a superficial notion of political economy.  Mr. Burke, a very young man with a tiny red moustache and a curious habit of wriggling his long weak neck, feeling his amusements were being unfairly attacked, broke the silence he had till then preserved, and said: 

’I haven’t an acre of land in the world, but if my brother chooses to live in London, I don’t see why he should be deprived of his rents.  For my part, I like the Gaiety Theatre, and so does my brother.  Have you seen the Forty Thieves, Lady Jane?  Capital piece—­I saw it twenty times.’

‘I think what Pathre, me cousin, means to say,’ said Mr. Lynch, declining the venison the servant offered him, ’is that there are many in the country who don’t deserve much consideration.  I am alluding to those who acquired their property in the land courts, and the Cromwellians, and the—­I mean the rack-renters.’

The sudden remembrance that Lord Dungory dated from the time of James so upset Mr. Lynch that he called back the servant and accepted the venison, which he failed, however, to eat.

‘I do not see,’ said Lord Dungory, with the air of a man whose words are conclusive, ’why we should go back to the time of Cromwell to discuss the rights of property rather than to that of the early Kings of Ireland.  If there is to be a returning, why not at once put in a claim on the part of the Irish Elk?  No! there must be some finality in human affairs.’  And on this phrase the conversation came to a pause.

But if the opinions of those present were not in accord concerning the rights of property, their tastes in conversation certainly differed as widely.  Olive’s white face twitched from time to time with nervous annoyance.  Alice looked up in a sort of mild despair as she strove to answer Mr. Lynch’s questions; May had fallen into a state of morose lassitude.  If Mr. Adair would only cease to explain to her how successfully he had employed concrete in the construction of his farm-buildings!  She felt that if he started again on the saw-mill she must faint, and Olive’s senses, too, were swimming, but just as she thought she was going off Captain Hibbert looked so admiringly at her that she recovered herself; and at the same time Mr. Scully succeeded in making May understand that he would infinitely prefer to be near her than Lady Sarah.  In return for this expression of feeling the young lady determined to risk a remark across the table; but she was cut short by Mrs. Gould, who pithily summed up the political situation in the words: