the countess was the only member of parliament who felt called upon to live
with her constituency.

Then suddenly the whole room seemed to join a chorus of protest against
President Wilson. At the Peace Conference all power was his. He was backed
by the richest, greatest nation in the world. But he failed to keep his
promise of gaining the self-determination of small nations. Was he yielding
to the anti-Irish sentiment brought about by English control of the cables
and English propaganda in the United States--was he to let his great
republic be intellectually dependent on the ancient monarchy?

"Perhaps," said AE to me after a few meditative puffs of his pipe, "you
feel like the American who was with us on a similar occasion a few weeks
ago. At last he burst out with: 'It's no conception which Americans have of
their president that he should take the place and the duties of God
Omnipotent in the world,'"

One day I went to discuss Irish labor with AE. I climbed up to that most
curious of all magazine offices--the _Irish Homestead_ office up under
the roof of Plunkett House. It is a semi-circular room whose walls are
covered with the lavender and purple people of AE's brush. AE was ambushed
behind piles of newspapers, and behind him in a grate filled with
smouldering peat blocks sat the black tea kettle. As a reporter, one of the
few things for which I am allowed to retain respect is the editorial dead
line. So I assured AE that I would be glad to return when he had finished
writing. But with a courtesy that is evidently founded on an inversion of
the American rule that business should always come before people, he
assured me that he could sit down at the fire with me at once.

Now I knew that he had great sympathy with laborers. I recalled his