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–Ah, true enough. I have often wondered how exactly crucifixions were carried out in practice. Did they crucify a man horizontally with the cross lying on the ground and then hoist him upright?

–I don’t know but I suppose so.

–Well by Gob they would have a job hoisting Collopy up. I am sure that man weighed at least thirty-five stone at the end and sure he wasn’t anything like the size of you or myself.

–Have you no compunction about your Gravid Water?

–Not at all. I think his metabolism went astray. But anybody who takes patent medicines runs a calculated risk.

–Was Mr Collopy the first the Gravid Water was tried on?

–I would have to look that up. Look, get two glasses and a sup of water. I’ve a little drop here before we go out.

He produced a half-pint bottle which was one-third full. I got the glasses, he divided the whiskey and there we were, our glasses on the range and sitting vis-a-vis, for all the world as if we were Mr Collopy and Father Fahrt. I asked him how Father Fahrt was.

–He is still in Rome, of course. He is in a very morbid state but tries hard at this business of pious resignation. I think he has forgotten about the Pope’s threats. I’m sure they were all bluff, anyway. And how’s our friend Annie?

–She seems resigned, too. I told her what you said about the necessity for hasty burial. She seemed to accept it. Of course, I said nothing about the Gravid Water.

–Just as well. Here’s luck!

–G’luck!

–I rang up those solicitors Sproule, Higgins and Fogarty and made an appointment for half four this evening. We’d better get out now and have a drink first.

–All right.

We took a tram to Merrion Square and went into a pub in Lincoln Place.

–Two balls of malt, the brother ordered.

–No, I interposed. Mine is a bottle of stout.

He looked at me incredulously and then reluctantly ordered a stout.

–In our game, he said, it doesn’t do to be seen drinking stout or anything of that kind. People would take you for a cabman.

–I might be that yet.

–Oh, there is one thing I forgot to tell you. On the night before the funeral I got in touch with one of those monumental sculpture fellows and ordered a simple headstone to be ready not later than the following night. I paid handsomely for it and the job was done. It was erected the following morning and I have paid for kerbing to be carried out as soon as the grave settles.

–You certainly think of everything, I said in some admiration.

–Why wouldn’t I think of that? I might never be in Rome again.

–Still …

–I believe you are a bit of a literary man.

–Do you mean the prize I got for my piece about Cardinal Newman?

–Well, that and other things. You have heard of Keats, of course?

–Of course. Ode to a Grecian Urn. Ode to Autumn.

–Exactly. Do you know where he died?

–I don’t. In his bed, I suppose?

–Like Collopy, he died in Rome and he is buried there. I saw his grave. Mick, give us a ball of malt and a bottle of stout. It is beautiful and very well kept.

–That is very interesting.

–He wrote his own epitaph. He had a poor opinion of his standing as a poet and wrote a sort of a jeer at himself on his tomb-stone. Of course it may have been all cod, just looking for praise.

–What’s this the phrase was?

–He wrote: Here lies one whose name is writ on water. Very poetical, ah?

–Yes, I remember it now.

–Wait till I show you. Drink up that, for goodness’ sake! I took a photograph of Collopy’s grave just before I left. Wait till you see now.

He rummaged in his inside pocket and produced his wallet and fished a photograph out of it. He handed it to me proudly. It showed a large plain mortuary slab bearing this inscription:

COLLOPY

of Dublin

1848-1910

Here lies one whose name is writ in water

R.I.P.

–Isn’t it good, he chuckled. In water’ instead of ‘on water’?

–Where’s his Christian name? I asked.

–Bedammit but I didn’t know it. Neither did Father Fahrt.

–Well where did you get the year of his birth?

–Well, that was more or less a guess. The hospital people said he was a