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“And I waved my gun all round the tram, and everybody tried to get off at once, and two or three dear old ladies spread themselves on the floor, and I said to one, ‘Yes, madam, that’s very nice, and we’ll bring you to at the other end; but we’re letting this old tram rip just now.’”
He sank back in his seat, mopping his forehead with his handkerchief, muttering, “Money for nothing!” Then he saw the clock, and beat his mouth with his handkerchief, and cried, “My God, my God, my God! I was due somewhere else half an hour ago,” and seized his hat and stick and hurried through the swing doors of the Shelbourne into the street.
We found Dublin more interesting every day.
CHAPTER VII
THE BIRTH OF SINN FEIN
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During our first months, September, October, and November, Ireland passed into a state of war. The country had been going there step by step, by way of raid and arrest on the one hand, and hedge and ditch shooting on the other; but the walk turned to a run and the run to a slide when the system of reprisals began. As summer turned into autumn, and autumn wore out, the hate and terror engendered by the deeds of either side were to beget the shameful happenings of the winter, so that Ireland, like a woman frightened during her time, produced a monster when her hour came.