‘She’s getting on her things, Gabriel,’ said Aunt Kate.

‘Who’s playing up there?’ asked Gabriel.

‘Nobody. They’re all gone.’

‘O no, Aunt Kate,’ said Mary Jane. ‘Bartell D’Arcy and Miss O’Callaghan aren’t gone yet.’

‘Someone is fooling at the piano anyhow,’ said Gabriel.

Mary Jane glanced at Gabriel and Mr. Browne and said with a shiver:

‘It makes me feel cold to look at you two gentlemen muffled up like that. I wouldn’t like to face your journey home at this hour.’

‘I’d like nothing better this minute,’ said Mr. Browne stoutly, ‘than a rattling fine walk in the country or a fast drive with a good spanking goer between the shafts.’

‘We used to have a very good horse and trap at home,’ said Aunt Julia, sadly.

‘The never-to-be-forgotten Johnny,’ said Mary Jane, laughing.

Aunt Kate and Gabriel laughed too.

‘Why, what was wonderful about Johnny?’ asked Mr. Browne.

‘The late lamented Patrick Morkan, our grandfather, that is,’ explained Gabriel, ‘commonly known in his later years as the old gentleman, was a glue-boiler.’

‘O, now, Gabriel,’ said Aunt Kate, laughing, ‘he had a starch mill.’

‘Well, glue or starch,’ said Gabriel, ‘the old gentleman had a horse by the name of Johnny. And Johnny used to work in the old gentleman’s mill, walking round and round in order to drive the mill. That was all very well; but now comes the tragic part about Johnny. One fine day the old gentleman thought he’d like to drive out with the quality to a military review in the park.’

‘The Lord have mercy on his soul,’ said Aunt Kate compassionately.

‘Amen,’ said Gabriel. ‘So the old gentleman, as I said, harnessed Johnny and put on his very best tall hat and his very best stock collar and drove out in grand style from his ancestral mansion somewhere near Back Lane, I think.’

Everyone laughed, even Mrs. Mallins, at Gabriel’s manner, and Aunt Kate said:

‘O, now, Gabriel, he didn’t live in Back Lane, really. Only the mill was there.’

‘Out from the mansion of his forefathers,’ continued Gabriel, ‘he drove with Johnny. And everything went on beautifully until Johnny came in sight of King Billy’s statue: and whether he fell in love with the horse King Billy sits on or whether he thought he was back again in the mill, anyhow he began to walk round the statue.’

Gabriel paced in a circle round the hall in his goloshes amid the laughter of the others.

‘Round and round he went,’ said Gabriel, ‘and the old gentleman, who was a very pompous old gentleman, was highly indignant. “Go on, sir! What do you mean, sir? Johnny! Johnny! Most extraordinary conduct! Can’t understand the horse!”’