General John Regan Part 30

Dr. O'Grady was not listening to a word the Major said. He was thinking deeply. His face lightened suddenly and he rushed across the room to the door.

"Mrs. Gregg!" he shouted. "Mrs. Gregg! Just one moment. I've got a capital suggestion to make, one to which there can be no possible objection from any point of view."

He ran downstairs. Father McCormack went to the door and looked after him. Then he turned and addressed the Major.

"You might go a long journey," he said, "before you'd meet the equal of the doctor."

The Major received this remark in silence. He was of opinion that a man who went a long journey in order to discover a second Dr. O'Grady would be a fool.

"Tell me this," said Father McCormack. "What relation is Mary Ellen to the General?"

"I've never been able to make that out for certain. Sometimes I'm told she's his niece, and sometimes his grand-niece."

Father McCormack looked round him cautiously and sank his voice to a whisper.

"Is she any relation at all?" he said slowly.

"No more than you are to the Sultan of Turkey."

"I was thinking as much myself," said Father McCormack.

Dr. O'Grady, having finished his talk with Mrs. Gregg, entered the room again.

"I've settled that matter satisfactorily anyhow," he said. "It occurred to me just after Mrs. Gregg had left the room, that some sort of fancy dress for the girl would be likely to please the Lord-Lieutenant, and would be a compromise which both ladies could accept without loss of dignity. Mary Ellen is to be rigged out as a traditional Irish colleen, the sort you see on the picture postcards they sell to tourists in Dublin. Mrs. Gregg is delighted, and Mrs. Ford can't possibly say that a crimson flannel skirt won't be useful to her afterwards. She'll look uncommonly well, and the Lord-Lieutenant will be all the more inclined to believe that the General was an Irishman when he sees his niece??"

"Tell me this," said Father McCormack, "is she a niece of the General or is she not?"

"The grand-niece," said Dr. O'Grady.

"She's neither the one nor the other," said the Major.

Dr. O'Grady glanced at Father McCormack. He saw by the look on the priest's face that there was no use trying to prove Mary Ellen's relationship. He laughed good-naturedly, and at once offered a satisfactory explanation of the position.

"Mr. Billing," he said, "insisted on our producing some sort of relative for the dead General. He wouldn't have given that 100 if we hadn't. Now what I say is this??"

"You'd say anything," said the Major.

"I'm not talking to you now, Major. I'm talking to Father McCormack, who's a man of sense, with some knowledge of the world. The way I'm putting it to him is this: Supposing there was a job going a begging, a nice comfortable job under the Government, with no particular duties attached to it, except just to look pleasant and be generally agreeable?there are such jobs."

"Plenty, plenty," said Father McCormack.

"And they're well paid," said the Major.

"And supposing that you were asked to nominate a man for the post??" Dr.

O'Grady still addressed himself only to Father McCormack. "You might be, you know. In fact you, and other people in your position often are, though there's always supposed to be a compet.i.tive examination."

"n.o.body believes in examinations," said the Major.

"That's exactly what I'm saying," said Dr. O'Grady. "Now what would you do in a case of the kind? As a matter of fact what do you do? What did you do when they were appointing a secretary to the Old-Age Pension Committee?"

"I'd look out for some decent poor fellow," said Father McCormack. "One that might be wanting something of the kind, a man that n.o.body would have anything particular to say against."

"You wouldn't spend a lot of time arguing about whether there ought to be such a secretary or not?"

"I would not, of course," said Father McCormack. "What would be the use?

If the job's there and a man's wanted I'd have no business talking about the rights or wrongs of it beyond saying that the salary ought to be a bit larger."

"Exactly," said Dr. O'Grady. "Now that's just what's happened in this case. It isn't exactly a job, under the Government, not under our Government, though it may lead on to something in Bolivia. Here's a dead General that has to be fitted out with a niece??"

"You said a grand-niece a minute ago," said the Major.

"The principle's the same," said Dr. O'Grady. "What I'm trying to get you to see is that Mary Ellen may just as well step into the position as anyone else."

"When you put it that way," said Father McCor-mack, "there's no more to be said. The girl's a decent girl, and I wouldn't stand in the way of her bettering herself."

"She'll be the better by a new dress, anyway!" said the Major. "I don't know that she'll benefit in any other way. But that's something."

"I rather think," said Dr. O'Grady, "that I hear Doyle downstairs. We'll be able to get on with the business of the committee now, whether he has Thady with him or not. We've wasted time enough."

"We'll waste a lot more before we've done," said the Major. "The whole thing's waste of time. There'll never be a statue in Ballymoy either to General John Regan or to anyone else."

Dr. O'Grady had drawn a bundle of papers from his pocket and laid them on the table before him.

"Our first business, gentlemen," he said, "is to settle about the illuminated address which Mrs. Ford has kindly consented to present to the Lord-Lieutenant."

Thady Gallagher glared at Dr. O'Grady savagely. He did not like being interrupted in the middle of a speech.

"Order, gentlemen, order," said Father McCor-mack, nervously tapping the table with his pencil.

"With regard to the illuminated address," said Doyle, "I'm of opinion that the carrying out of it should be given into the hands of a Dublin firm. It's our duty to support Irish manufacture. There's too much money sent over to England that might be far better kept at home. You'll agree with me there, Thady."

"What are you going to say in the address?" said the Major.

"Oh, the usual things," said Dr. O'Grady. "I don't think we need go into that in detail. All addresses are pretty much the same."

"I won't sign my name to anything political," said the Major.

"I'm with you there," said Father McCormack. "It's one of the curses of this country the way politics are dragged into business."

"n.o.body wants politics," said Dr. O'Grady. "The address will contain nothing but nice little compliments to the Lord-Lieutenant with a word or two about the value of piers put in at the end."

"If the matter's left in the hands of the firm I have in mind," said Doyle, "it'll be done right. They've illuminated three-quarters of the addresses that have been presented in the country, and whether it's a bank manager or a priest going on a new mission, or a Lord-Lieutenant that the address is for, the firm I mean will know what to put into it.

They've had the experience, and experience is what is wanted."

"We'll give him names and dates," said Dr. O'Grady, "and tell him that this is a seaport town with no proper pier. With that information any fool could draw up the text of an illuminated address. I propose that the matter be left in the hands of a subcommittee consisting of Mr.

Doyle."

"Are you all agreed on that, gentlemen?" said Father McCormack.