ed no more than a block of
the street. They swarmed past him, they raced on into the distance, and
Sean O'Donohue struggled to a sitting position.

His shoes were shreds. Dinies had torn them swiftly apart for the nails
in them. His garters were gone. Dinies had operated on his pants to get
at the metal parts. His pockets were ripped. The bright metal buttons
of his coat were gone. His zippers had vanished. His suspenders dangled
without any metal parts to hold them together, nor were there any pants
buttons for them to hold onto. He opened his mouth, and closed it, and
opened it again and closed it. His expression was that of a man in
delirium.

And, even before the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the solicitor
general could lift him gently and bear him away, there came a final
catastrophe, for the O'Donohue. The snakes who had watched events from
the curbs, as well as those which had gazed interestedly from aloft,
now began to realize that this was an affair which affected them. They
came out and began to follow the vanishing procession, very much as
small dogs and little boys pursue a circus parade. But they seemed to
talk uneasily to each other as they flowed past Sean O'Donohue, sitting
in the dust of the street, all his illusions vanished and all his hopes
destroyed.

But the people of Tara did not notice. They cheered themselves hoarse.

* * * * *

President O'Hanrahan held himself with some dignity in the tumble-down
reception hall of the presidential mansion. Moira gazed proudly at him.
The two still-active members of the Dail Committee looked uncomfortably
around them. The cabinet of Eire was assembled.

"It's sorry I am," said the President of Eire, "to have to issue a
defiance to the Eire on Earth we owe so much to. But it can't be
helped. We had to have the black creatures to keep the dinies from
eating us out of house and home altogether. We've been fightin' a
rear-guard battle, and we needed them. In time we'd have won with their
help, but time we did not have. So this mornin' Moira told me what
she'd done yesterday. The darlin' had used the brains God gave her, and
maybe holy St. Patrick put a flea in her ear. She figured out that
dinies must find metal by its smell, and if its smell was made stronger
by simple heatin' they'd be unable to resist it. And it was so. Ye saw
the chief justice runnin' down the street with all the dinies after
him."

The two me