ughter, regarded the president with sympathy.
He looked bedraggled and crushed. He mopped his forehead. He did not
raise his eyes to her. It was bad enough to be president of a planetary
government that couldn't even pay his salary, so there were patches in
his breeches that Moira must have noticed. It was worse that the colony
was, as a whole, entirely too much like the remaining shanty areas in
Eire back on Earth. But it was tragic that it was ridiculous for any
man on Eire to ask a girl from Earth to join him on so unpromising a
planet.

He said numbly:

"I'll be wishing you good morning, Moira."

He moved away, his chin sunk on his breast. Moira watched him go. She
didn't seem happy. Then, fifty yards from the mansion, a luridly
colored something leaped out of a hole. It was a diny some eight inches
long, in enough of a hurry to say that something appalling was after
it. It landed before the president and took off again for some far
horizon. Then something sinuous and black dropped out of a tree upon it
and instantly violent action took place in a patch of dust. A small
cloud arose. The president watched, with morbid interest, as the
sporting event took place.

Moira stared, incredulous. Then, out of the hole from which the diny
had leaped, a dark round head appeared. It could have been Timothy. But
he saw that this diny was disposed of. That was that. Timothy--if it
was Timothy--withdrew to search further among diny tunnels about the
presidential mansion.

* * * * *

Half an hour later the president told the solicitor general of Eire
about it. He was bitter.

"And when it was over, there was Moira starin' dazed-like from the
porch, and the be-damned snake picked up the diny it'd killed and
started off to dine on it in private. But I was in the way. So the
snake waited, polite, with the diny in its mouth, for me to move on.
But it looked exactly like he'd brought over the diny for me to admire,
like a cat'll show dead mice to a person she thinks will be
interested!"

"Holy St. Patrick!" said the solicitor general, appalled. "What'll
happen now?"

"I reason," said the president morbidly, "she'll tell her grandfather,
and he'll collar somebody and use those gimlet eyes on him and the poor
_omadhoum_ will blurt out that on Eire here it's known that St. Patrick
brought the snakes and is the more reverenced for it. And that'll mean
there'll be no more ships or food or