t them at sixpence
a quart. I was telling them, at mess yesterday, that we must not
write home and tell them about it; or faith, there would be such an
emigration that the Rock wouldn't hold the people--not if you were
to build houses all over it. Sixpence a quart, and good sound
tipple!

"Sure, and it was a mighty mistake of Providence that Ireland was
not dropped down into the sea, off the coast of Spain. What a
country it would have been!"

"I don't know, Teddy," Captain O'Halloran said. "As the people
don't kill themselves with overwork, now, I doubt if they would
ever work at all, if they had the excuse of a hot climate for doing
nothing."

"There would not have been so much need, Gerald. They needn't have
bothered about the thatch, when it only rains once in six months,
or so; while as for clothes, it is little enough they would have
needed. And the bogs would all have dried up, and they would have
had crops without more trouble than just scratching the ground, and
sowing in the seed; and they would have grown oranges, instead of
praties. Oh, it would have been a great country, entirely!"

The doctor's three listeners all went off into a burst of laughter,
at the seriousness with which he spoke.

"But you would have had trouble with your pigs," Mrs. O'Halloran
said. "The Spanish pigs are wild, fierce-looking beasts, and would
never be content to share the cottages."

"Ah! But we would have had Irish pigs just the same as now. Well,
what do you think--" and he broke off suddenly, sitting upright,
and dropping the brogue altogether--"they were saying, at mess,
that the natives declare there are lots of Spanish troops moving
down in this direction; and that a number of ships are expected,
with stores, at Algeciras."

"Well, what of that?" Mrs. O'Halloran asked. "We are at peace with
Spain. What does it matter where they move their troops, or land
stores?"

"That is just the thing. We are at peace with them, sure enough;
but that is no reason why we should be always at peace. You know
how they hate seeing our flag flying over the Rock; and they may
think that, now we have got our hands full with France, and the
American colonists, it will be the right time for them to join in
the scrimmage, and see if they can't get the Rock back again."

"But they would never go to war, without any ground of complaint!"

"I don't know, Mrs. O'Halloran. When one wants to pick a quarrel
with a man, it is always a mighty