lose his appetite and sleep; and
one morning Dick found him sitting on the sand looking very queer
indeed--as well he might, for he had been "seeing things" since dawn.

"What is it, Paddy?" said the boy, running up, followed by Emmeline.

Mr Button was staring at a point on the sand close by. He had his right
hand raised after the manner of a person who is trying to catch a fly.
Suddenly he made a grab at the sand, and then opened his hand wide to
see what he had caught.

"What is it, Paddy?"

"The Cluricaune," replied Mr Button. "All dressed in green he
was--musha! musha! but it's only pretindin' I am."

The complaint from which he was suffering has this strange thing about
it, that, though the patient sees rats, or snakes, or what-not, as
real-looking as the real things, and though they possess his mind for a
moment, almost immediately he recognises that he is suffering from a
delusion.

The children laughed, and Mr Button laughed in a stupid sort of way.

"Sure, it was only a game I was playin'--there was no Cluricaune at
all--it's whin I dhrink rum it puts it into me head to play games like
that. Oh, be the Holy Poker, there's red rats comin' out of the sand!"

He got on his hands and knees and scuttle off towards the cocoanut
trees, looking over his shoulder with a bewildered expression on his
face. He would have risen to fly, only he dared not stand up.

The children laughed and danced round him as he crawled.

"Look at the rats, Paddy! look at the rats!" cried Dick.

"They're in front of me!" cried the afflicted one, making a vicious
grab at an imaginary rodent's tail. "Ran dan the bastes! now they're
gone. Musha, but it's a fool I'm makin' of meself."

"Go on, Paddy," said Dick; "don't stop. Look there--there's more rats
coming after you!"

"Oh, whisht, will you?" replied Paddy, taking his seat on the sand, and
wiping his brow. "They're aff me now."

The children stood by, disappointed of their game. Good acting appeals
to children just as much as to grown-up people. They stood waiting for
another excess of humour to take the comedian, and they had not to wait
long.

A thing like a flayed horse came out of the lagoon and up the beach,
and this time Button did not crawl away. He got on his feet and ran.

"It's a harse that's afther me--it's a harse that's afther me! Dick!
Dick! hit him a skelp. Dick! Dick! dhrive him away."

"Hurroo! Hurroo!" cried Dick, chasing the afflicted one, who was
r