“I’m rather bothered about that American in some ways,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Are you telling me the truth now, Thady, about what he said?”
“I am,” said Gallagher. “I’d take my oath to every word of it.”
“Either he’s a much greater fool than he looks,” said Dr. O’Grady, “or else—but I’ll find that out afterwards. Go on with your story, Thady. What happened next?”
“Well, after he’d cried about a saucerful——”
“I thought you said he didn’t actually cry?”
“It was like as if he was going to cry. I told you that before.”
“Come on, O’Grady,” said the Major. “What’s the use of listening to this sort of stuff?”
“Be quiet, Major,” said Dr. O’Grady. “We’re just coming to the point. Go ahead, Thady. You’d just got to the saucerful of tears. When he’d emptied that out, what did he do?”
“He asked me,” said Gallagher, “was there any relatives or friends of the General surviving in the locality? He had me beat there.”
“I hope you told him there were several,” said Dr. O’Grady.
“I did, of course. Is it likely I’d disappoint the gentleman, and him set on finding someone belonging to the General? ‘Who are they?’ said he. ‘Tell me their names,’ Well, it was there I made the mistake.”
“It was a bit awkward,” said Dr. O’Grady, “when you didn’t know who the General was.”
“What I thought to myself,” said Gallagher, “was this. There might be many a one in the locality that would be glad enough to be a cousin of the General’s, even if there was no money to be got out of it, and it could be that there would. But, not knowing much about the General, I wasn’t easy in my mind for fear that anybody I named might be terrible angry with me after for giving them a cousin that might be some sort of a disgrace to the family——”
“I see now,” said Dr. O’Grady. “You thought it safer to name somebody who didn’t exist. But what made you think of a wife for young Kerrigan?”
“It was the first thing came into my head,” said Gallagher, “and I was that flustered I said it without thinking.”
“He was mighty pleased, so he was. ‘Take me to her,’ he said. ‘Take me to see her this minute,’ Well, to be sure I couldn’t do that.”
“You could not,” said Dr. O’Grady. “Could he, Major?”
“I don’t see why not. He might have hired some girl for half an hour.”