etc.'

"Well, Zeno," said my uncle: "what do you think of Father Hickey now?"

"Uncle: do not ask me. Beneath this roof I desire to believe
everything. The Reverend Hickey has appealed strongly to my love of
legend. Let us admire the poetry of his narrative and ignore the
balance of probability between a Christian priest telling a lie on his
own oath and a graveyard swimming across a river in the middle of the
night and forgetting to return."

"Tom Hickey is not telling a lie, you may take my word on that. But he
may be mistaken."

"Such a mistake amounts to insanity. It is true that I myself,
awakening suddenly in the depth of night have found myself convinced
that the position of my bed had been reversed. But on opening my eyes
the illusion ceased. I fear Mr. Hickey is mad. Your best course is
this. Send down to Four Mile Water a perfectly sane investigator; an
acute observer; one whose perceptive faculties, at once healthy and
subtle, are absolutely unclouded by religious prejudice. In a word,
send me. I will report to you the true state of affairs in a few days;
and you can then make arrangements for transferring Hickey from the
altar to the asylum."

"Yes I had intended to send you. You are wonderfully sharp; and you
would make a capital detective if you could only keep your mind to one
point. But your chief qualifications for this business is that you are
too crazy to excite the suspicion of those whom you have to watch. For
the affair may be a trick. If so, I hope and believe that Hickey has
no hand in it. Still, it is my duty to take every precaution."

"Cardinal: may I ask whether traces of insanity have ever appeared in
our family?"

"Except in you and in my grandmother, no. She was a Pole; and you
resemble her personally. Why do you ask?"

"Because it has often occurred to me that you are perhaps a little
cracked. Excuse my candor; but a man who has devoted his life to the
pursuit of a red hat; who accuses everyone else beside himself of
being mad; and is disposed to listen seriously to a tale of a
peripatetic graveyard, can hardly be quite sane. Depend upon it,
uncle, you want rest and change. The blood of your Polish grandmother
is in your veins."

"I hope I may not be committing a sin in sending a ribald on the
church's affairs," he replied, fervently. "However, we must use the
instruments put into our hands. Is it agreed that you go?"

"Had you not delayed me with the story, which I might as