The Drop of Irish

War? He didn't know what it meant, of course. It made good poetry and
interesting fiction; it rendered history amusing; made dry facts
succulent.

Preparations for war in Europe, which had been going on for fifty
years, were most valuable, too, in contributing the brilliant hues of
uniforms to an otherwise sombre civilian world, and investing
commonplace and sober cities with the omnipresent looming mystery of
fortifications.

To a painter, war seemed to be a dramatic and gorgeous affair; to a
young man it appealed as all excitement appeals. The sportsman in him
desired to witness a scrap; his artist's imagination was aroused; the
gambler in him speculated as to the outcome of such a war. And the
seething, surging drop of Irish fizzed and purred and coaxed for a
chance to edge sideways into any fight which God in His mercy might
provide for a decent gossoon who had never yet had the pleasure of a
broken head.

"Not," thought Neeland to himself, "that I'll go trailing my coat
tails. I'll go about my own business, of course--but somebody may hit
me a crack at that!"

He thought of Ilse Dumont and of the man with the golden beard,
realising that he had had a wonderful time, after all; sorry in his
heart that it was all over and that the Volhynia was due to let go
her mudhooks in the Mersey about three o'clock the next morning.