gible genius for
myth-making, the faculty that makes our traditional history a
perpetual joy, because it is, like the Sidhe, an eternal
Shape-changer.

At Philadelphia, the city of trees, where in spite of a day in the
police court and before a judge, and the arrest of our players at
the suit not of a Puritan but a publican, and the throwing of
currant cake with intent to injure, I received very great personal
kindness, a story of his childhood told by my host gave me a fable
on which to hang my musings; and the Dublin enthusiast and the
American enthusiast who interchanged so many compliments and made so
brave a show to one another, became Dermot and Timothy, "two
harmless drifty lads," the _Bogie Men_ of my little play. They were
to have been vagrants, tatterdemalions, but I needed some dress the
change of which would change their whole appearance in a moment, and
there came to mind the chimney sweepers of my childhood.

They used to come trotting the five miles from Loughrea, little
fellows with blue eyes shining out from soot-black faces, wearing
little soot-coloured smocks. Our old doctor told us he had gone to
see one of them who was sick, and had found him lying in a box, with
soot up to his chin as bedding and blanket.

Not many years ago a decent looking man came to my door, with I
forget what request. He told me he had heard of ghosts and fairies,
but had never met with anything worse than himself, but that he had
had one great fright in his lifetime. Its cause had been the
squealing and outcry made by two rats caught in one trap, that had
come clattering down a flight of steps one time when he was a little
lad, and had come sweeping chimneys to Roxborough.

[Music: AIR OF "ALL AROUND MY HAT I WILL WEAR A GREEN RIBBON!"]

THE FULL MOON

It had sometimes preyed on my mind that _Hyacinth Halvey_ had been
left by me in Cloon for his lifetime, bearing the weight of a
character that had been put on him by force. But it failed me to
release him by reason, that "binds men to the wheel"; it took the
call of some of those unruly ones who give in to no limitations, and
dance to the sound of music that is outside this world, to bring him
out from "roast and boiled and all the comforts of the day." Where he
is now I do not know, but anyway he is free.

Tannian's dog has now become a protagonist; and Bartley Fallon and
Shawn Early strayed in from the fair green of _Spreading the News_,
and Mrs. Broderick from