Two gentlemen who were in the lavatory at the time tried to lift him up: but he was quite helpless. He lay curled up at the foot of the stairs down which he had fallen. They succeeded in turning him over. His hat had rolled a few yards away and his clothes were smeared with the filth and ooze of the floor on which he had lain, face downwards. His eyes were closed and he breathed with a grunting noise. A thin stream of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

[...; Mr Power and others bring Mr. Kernan, the victim, back to his home and later visit him in his bedroom while he recovers from a bitten tongue incurred in the accident.]

    -So we’re going to wash the pot together, said Mr Cunningham.
  A thought seemed to strike him. He turned suddenly to the invalid and said:
  —D’ye know what, Tom, has just occurred to me? You might join in and we’d have a four-handed reel.
  —Good idea, said Mr Power. The four of us together.
  Mr Kernan was silent. The proposal conveyed very little meaning to his mind, but, understanding that some spiritual agencies were about to concern themselves on his behalf, he thought he owed it to his dignity to show a stiff neck. He took no part in the conversation for a long while, but listened, with an air of calm enmity, while his friends discussed the Jesuits.
  —I haven’t such a bad opinion of the Jesuits, he said, intervening at length. They’re an educated order. I believe they mean well, too.
  —They’re the grandest order in the Church, Tom, said Mr Cunningham, with enthusiasm. The General of the Jesuits stands next to the Pope.
  —There’s no mistake about it, said Mr M’Coy, if you want a thing well done and no flies about, you go to a Jesuit. They’re the boyos have influence. I’ll tell you a case in point ... .
  —The Jesuits are a fine body of men, said Mr Power.

[...]

  —O, it’s just a retreat, you know, said Mr Cunningham. Father Purdon is giving it. It’s for business men, you know.
  —He won’t be too hard on us, Tom, said Mr Power persuasively.
  —Father Purdon? Father Purdon? said the invalid.
  —O, you must know him, Tom, said Mr Cunningham, stoutly. Fine, jolly fellow! He’s a man of the world like ourselves.

[...]

  —Pope Leo XIII, said Mr Cunningham, was one of the lights of the age. His great idea, you know, was the union of the Latin and Greek Churches. That was the aim of his life.
  —I often heard he was one of the most intellectual men in Europe, said Mr Power. I mean, apart from his being Pope.
  —So he was, said Mr Cunningham, if not the most so. His motto, you know, as Pope, was Lux upon Lux - light upon light.
  —No, no, said Mr Fogarty eagerly. I think you’re wrong there. It was Lux in Tenebris, I think - Light in Darkness.
  —O yes, said Mr M’Coy, Tenebrae.
  —Allow me, said Mr Cunningham positively, it was Lux upon Lux. And Pius IX his predecessor’s motto was Crux upon Crux - that is, Cross upon Cross - to show the difference between their two pontificates.
  The inference was allowed.

[...]

  The transept of the Jesuit Church in Gardiner Street was almost full; and still at every moment gentlemen entered from the side door and, directed by the lay-brother, walked on tiptoe along the aisles until they found seating accommodation. The gentlemen were all well dressed and orderly. The light of the lamps of the church fell upon an assembly of black clothes and white collars, relieved here and there by tweeds, on dark mottled pillars of green marble and on lugubrious canvases. The gentlemen sat in the benches, having hitched their trousers slightly above their knees and laid their hats in security. They sat
well back and gazed formally at the distant speck of red light which was suspended before the high altar.

[...]

  A powerful-looking figure, the upper part of which was draped with a white surplice, was observed to be struggling up into the pulpit.

[...]

    Father Purdon developed the text with resonant assurance. [...] He told his hearers that he was there that evening for no terrifying, no extravagant purpose; but as a man of the world speaking to his fellow-men. He came to speak to business men and he would speak to them in a business-like way. If he might use the metaphor, he said, he was their spiritual accountant; and he wished each and every one of his hearers to open his books, the books of his spiritual life, and see if they tallied accurately with conscience.
  Jesus Christ was not a hard taskmaster. He understood our little failings, understood the weakness of our poor fallen nature, understood the temptations of this life. We might have had, we all had from time to time, our temptations: we might have, we all had, our failings. But one thing only, he said, he would ask of his hearers. And that was: to be straight and manly with God. If their accounts tallied in every point to say:
  —Well, I have verified my accounts. I find all well.
  But if, as might happen, there were some discrepancies, to admit the truth, to be frank and say like a man:
  —Well, I have looked into my accounts. I find this wrong and this wrong. But, with God’s grace, I will rectify this and this. I will set right my accounts.