men into action. For a good battle to be fought there must be some woman
to give it power.'

"'Every time,' I agreed, 'if you want to have a good lively scrap.
There's only one thing bothering me. In the novels the light-haired
friend of the hero always gets killed. Think 'em all over that you've
read, and you'll see that I'm right. I think I'll step down to the
Botica Española and lay in a bottle of walnut stain before war is
declared.'

"'How will I find out her name?' says O'Connor, layin' his chin in his
hand.

"'Why don't you go across the street and ask her?' says I.

"'Will ye never regard anything in life seriously?' says O'Connor,
looking down at me like a schoolmaster.

"'Maybe she meant the rose for me,' I said, whistling the Spanish
Fandango.

"For the first time since I'd known O'Connor, he laughed. He got up and
roared and clapped his knees, and leaned against the wall till the tiles
on the roof clattered to the noise of his lungs. He went into the back
room and looked at himself in the glass and began and laughed all over
from the beginning again. Then he looked at me and repeated himself.
That's why I asked you if you thought an Irishman had any humor. He'd
been doing farce comedy from the day I saw him without knowing it; and
the first time he had an idea advanced to him with any intelligence
in it he acted like two twelfths of the sextet in a 'Floradora' road