The gentlemen drank again, one following another's example. Mr Kernan seemed to be weighing something in his mind. He was impressed. He had a high opinion of Mr Cunningham as a judge of character and as a reader of faces. He asked for particulars.

`O, it's just a retreat, you know,' said Mr Cunningham. `Father Purdon is giving it. It's for business men, you know.'

`He won't be too hard on us, Tom,' said Mr Power persuasively.

`Father Purdon? Father Purdon?' said the invalid.

`O, you must know him, Tom,' said Mr Cunningham, stoutly. `Fine, jolly fellow! He's a man of the world like ourselves.'

`Ah... yes. I think I know him. Rather red face; tall.'

`That's the man.'

`And tell me, Martin... Is he a good preacher?'

`Munno... It's not exactly a sermon, you know. It's just a kind of a friendly talk, you know, in a common-sense way.'

Mr Kernan deliberated. Mr M'Coy said:

`Father Tom Burke, that was the boy!'

`O, Father Tom Burke,' said Mr Cunningham, `that was a born orator. Did you ever hear him, Tom?'

`Did I ever hear him!' said the invalid, nettled. `Rather! I heard him... '

`And yet they say he wasn't much of a theologian,' said Mr Cunningham.

`Is that so?' said Mr M'Coy.

`O, of course, nothing wrong, you know. Only sometimes, they say, he didn't preach what was quite orthodox.'

`Ah!... he was a splendid man,' said Mr M'Coy.

`I heard him once,' Mr Kernan continued. `I forget the subject of his discourse now. Crofton and I were in the back of the... pit, you know... the—'

`The body,' said Mr Cunningham.

`Yes, in the back near the door. I forgot now what... O yes, it was on the Pope, the late Pope. I remember it well. Upon my word it was magnificent, the style of the oratory. And his voice! God! hadn't he a voice! The Prisoner of the Vatican, he called him. I remember Crofton saying to me when we came out—'