Sometimes after a late sitting Parnell and I would get some coffee at the early coffee stalls for workmen on the way from London. In the early morning half-light, when the day was just beginning to break, we loved to watch drowsy London rubbing the sleep from her eyes, hastening her labouring sons upon their way to ease the later waking of their luxurious brothers. Parnell was always interested in manual labourers; he loved to watch them at work, and he liked to talk to them of their work and of their homes. A man with a hammer or a pick-axe was almost an irresistible attraction to him, and he would often get me to stand and watch the men engaged on a road or harbour work.
About this time (it was in 1883) Mr. (afterwards Sir) Howard Vincent, head of the Detective Department of Scotland Yard, sent a note to the House of Commons asking Parnell to see him for a few minutes, as he had an important communication to make to him. Parnell was just going to speak, so he brought me the note up to the Ladies' Gallery, and, hastily putting it into my hand, said: "See to this for me."
It was a morning sitting, and I hurried off to Scotland Yard hoping to get back in time to hear Parnell speak, and yet anxious to hear what the note meant. I was shown { 217} into Sir Howard Vincent's private room directly I arrived, and he expressed great pleasure, as well as great surprise, at seeing me. I showed him his note to Parnell, and asked him to what it referred. He answered that the "officials" all considered the matter serious, and that the Government were prepared to give Mr. Parnell protection if he wished it.
I told him that Mr. Parnell would, I was sure, not like that at all, and, after a long conversation of no particular definiteness, Sir Howard said: "I do not think you believe in this particular threat against Mr. Parnell, do you, Mrs. O'Shea?"
I replied: "Well, it does seem rather like a hoax to me. Would you mind letting me see the 'letter of warning'?" He laughed and said: "Not at all, but I've torn it up and flung it into the waste-paper basket."
I promptly picked up the basket in question and turned it over on his table, saying: "Let us piece it together." He pretended to help me for a few moments, as I neatly put together various uninteresting documents, and then, with a deprecating smile, swept them all together, saying: "It is your game, Mrs. O'Shea; you are too clever. Why didn't you send Mr. Parnell round?" and we parted with laughing expressions of goodwill and amusement on his part that we had not been taken in.