d many scratches, there was nothing wrong. My own
appearance need not here be dilated upon. I was cleaning off what they
call in Ireland "the biggest of the filth" with a bunch of heather,
when from a cottage a little bit down the lane in which I was standing a
small barelegged child emerged. It saw me, uttered one desperate howl,
and fled back into the house. I abandoned my toilet and led the mare to
the cottage door.

"Is any one in?" I said to the house at large.

A fresh outburst of yells was the sole response; there was a pattering
of bare feet, and somewhere in the smoky gloom a door slammed. It was
clearly a case of "Not at Home" in its conventional sense. I scribbled
Robert Trinder's name on one of my visiting cards, laid it and half a
sovereign on a table by the door, and started to make my way home.

The south of Ireland is singularly full of people. I do not believe you
can go a quarter of a mile on any given road without meeting some one,
and that some one is sure to be conversationally disposed and glad of
the chance of answering questions. By dint of asking a good many, I
eventually found myself on the high road, with five miles between me and
Lisangle. The mare's lameness had nearly worn off, and she walked beside
me like a dog. After all, I thought, I had had the best of the day, had
come safely out of what might have been a nasty business, and was
supplied with a story on which to dine out for the rest of my life. My
only anxiety was as to whether I could hope for a bath when I got in--a
luxury that had been hideously converted by the _locale_ of my fall into
a necessity. I led the filly in the twilight down the dark Lisangle
drive, feeling all the complacency of a man who knows he has gone well
in a strange country, and was just at the turn to the yard when I came
upon an extraordinary group. All the women of the household were there,
gathered in a tight circle round some absorbing central fact; all were
shrieking at the tops of their voices, and the turkey cock in the yard
gobbled in response to each shriek.

"Ma'am, ma'am!" I heard, "ye'll pull the tail off him!"

"Twisht the tink-an now, Bridgie! Twisht it!"

"Holy Biddy! the masther'll kill us!"

What the deuce were they at? and what was a "tink-an"? I dragged the
filly nearer, and discovered that a hound puppy was the central point of
the tumult, and was being contended for, like the body of Moses, by Miss
Trinder and Bridgie the parlour-ma