out plainly above the vivid orange tie he wore. Between these rival features the lips appeared very long and shapeless and colourless. He bent his head and felt with two sympathetic fingers the thin hair at the crown. Little Chandler shook his head as a denial. Ignatius Gallaher put on his hat again.

`It pulls you down,' he said. `Press life. Always hurry and scurry, looking for copy and sometimes not finding it: and then, always to have something new in your stuff. Damn proofs and printers, I say, for a few days. I'm deuced glad, I can tell you, to get back to the old country. Does a fellow good, a bit of a holiday. I feel a ton better since I landed again in dear, dirty Dublin... Here you are, Tommy. Water? Say when.'

Little Chandler allowed his whisky to be very much diluted.

`You don't know what's good for you, my boy,' said Ignatius Gallaher. `I drink mine neat.'

`I drink very little as a rule,' said Little Chandler modestly. `An odd half-one or so when I meet any of the old crowd: that's all.'

`Ah well,' said Ignatius Gallaher cheerfully, `here's to us and to old times and old acquaintance.'

They clinked glasses and drank the toast.

`I met some of the old gang today,' said Ignatius Gallaher. `O'Hara seems to be in a bad way. What's he doing?'

`Nothing,' said Little Chandler. `He's gone to the dogs.'

`But Hogan has a good sit, hasn't he?'

`Yes, be's in the Land Commission.'

`I met him one night in London and he seemed to be very flush... Poor O'Hara! Booze, I suppose?'

`Other things, too,' said Little Chandler shortly.

Ignatius Gallaher laughed.

`Tommy,' he said, `I see you haven't changed an atom. You're the very same serious person that used to lecture me on Sunday mornings when I had a sore head and a fur on my tongue. You'd want to knock about a bit in the world. Have you never been anywhere even for a trip?'

`I've been to the Isle of Man,' said Little Chandler.

Ignatius Gallaher laughed.

`The Isle of Man!' he said. `Go to London or Paris: Paris, for choice. That'd do you good.'

`Have you seen Paris?'

`I should think I have! I've knocked about there a little.'

`And is it really so beautiful as they say?' asked Little Chandler.

He sipped a little of his drink while Ignatius Gallaher finished his boldly.

`Beautiful?' said Ignatius Gallaher, pausing on the word and on the flavour of his drink. `It's not so beautiful, you know. Of course it is beautiful... But it's the life of Paris; that's the thing. Ah, there's no city like Paris for gaiety, movement, excitement... '