The cars came scud­ding in to­wards Dub­lin, run­ning evenly like pel­lets in the groove of the Naas Road. At the crest of the hill at In­chicore sight­seers had gathered in clumps to watch the cars ca­reer­ing home­ward and through this chan­nel of poverty and in­ac­tion the Contin­ent sped its wealth and in­dustry. Now and again the clumps of people raised the cheer of the grate­fully op­pressed. Their sym­pathy, how­ever, was for the blue cars—the cars of their friends, the French.
The French, moreover, were vir­tual vic­tors. Their team had fin­ished solidly; they had been placed second and third and the driver of the win­ning Ger­man car was re­por­ted a Bel­gian. Each blue car, there­fore, re­ceived a double meas­ure of wel­come as it topped the crest of the hill and each cheer of wel­come was ac­know­ledged with smiles and nods by those in the car. In one of these trimly built cars was a party of four young men whose spir­its seemed to be at present well above the level of suc­cess­ful Gal­li­cism: in fact, these four young men were al­most hil­ari­ous