"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 forget 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—"
