te between the probable and the
improbable, and thus to settle the historical value of a tradition. In his
way, he was also a philosopher, having evidently given much thought to
social issues, and expressing his conclusions thereupon with the ease and
freedom of a master mind.

Upon being informed of the variety and amount of legendary material
collected about the Gray Man and his doings, Barney unhesitatingly
pronounced the entire assortment worthless, and condemned all the gathered
treasures as the creations of petty intellects, which could not get out of
the beaten track, but sought in the supernatural a reason for and
explanation of every fact that seemed at variance with the routine of
daily experience. In his opinion, the Gray Man is never seen at all in our
day and generation, having been gathered to his fathers ages ago; nor is
there any enchanted island; to use his own language, "all thim shtories
bein' made be thim blaggard guides that set up av a night shtringin' out
laigends for to enthertain the quol'ty."

"Now, av yer Anner wants to hear it, I can tell ye the thrue shtory av the
Gray Man, no more is there anny thing wondherful in it, but it's just as I
had it from me grandfather, that towld it to the childher for to entertain
thim.

"It's very well beknownst that in thim owld days there were gionts in
plinty hereabouts, but they didn't make the Causeway at all, for that's a
work o' nacher, axceptin' the Gray Man's Path, that I'm goin' to tell ye
av. But ivery wan knows that there were gionts, bekase if there wasn't,
how cud we know o' thim at all, but wan thing's sartain, they were just
like us, axceptin' in the matther o' size, for wan ov thim 'ud make a
dozen like the men that live now.

"Among the gionts that lived about the Causeway there was wan, a young
giont named Finn O'Goolighan, that was the biggest av his kind, an' none
o' thim cud hide in a kish. So Finn, for the size av him, was a livin'
terror. His little finger was the size av yer Anner's arrum, an' his wrist
as big as yer leg, an' so he wint, bigger an' bigger. Whin he walked he
carried an oak-tree for a shtick, ye cud crawl into wan av his shoes, an'
his caubeen 'ud cover a boat. But he was a good-humored young felly wid a
laugh that 'ud deefen ye, an' a plazin' word for all he met, so as if ye
run acrass him in the road, he'd give ye 'good morrow kindly,' so as ye'd
feel the betther av it all day. He'd work an' he'd play an' do aither