BROADBENT [quite reassured]. Of course I am. Our guidance is the
important thing. We English must place our capacity for
government without stint at the service of nations who are less
fortunately endowed in that respect; so as to allow them to
develop in perfect freedom to the English level of
self-government, you know. You understand me?

DOYLE. Perfectly. And Rosscullen will understand you too.

BROADBENT [cheerfully]. Of course it will. So that's all right.
[He pulls up his chair and settles himself comfortably to lecture
Doyle]. Now, Larry, I've listened carefully to all you've said
about Ireland; and I can see nothing whatever to prevent your
coming with me. What does it all come to? Simply that you were
only a young fellow when you were in Ireland. You'll find all
that chaffing and drinking and not knowing what to be at in
Peckham just the same as in Donnybrook. You looked at Ireland
with a boy's eyes and saw only boyish things. Come back with me
and look at it with a man's, and get a better opinion of your
country.

DOYLE. I daresay you're partly right in that: at all events I
know very well that if I had been the son of a laborer instead of
the son of a country landagent, I should have struck more grit
than I did. Unfortunately I'm not going back to visit the Irish
nation, but to visit my father and Aunt Judy and Nora Reilly and
Father Dempsey and the rest of them.

BROADBENT. Well, why not? They'll be delighted to see you, now