grass now, whenever they
liked. They had given up trying to learn the ways of men, and they
were beginning to feel as if they had always lived here. Then
Naggeneen came one evening and stood before the King and said: "It is
the time now to try my plan, if you want to try it, but it's no
good."

"What's the plan, then, at all?" the King asked.

"You know well," said Naggeneen, "that your people can find out
nothing by going out and watching what men do. Now, what you want is
to get a human child here, or maybe two of them, and keep them and let
them grow up with you here, and then send them out to learn everything
that men do, and come back and teach it to your people. Then you'll
learn all these things that men do, and you can do the like."

"Ah, Naggeneen," said the King, "it's yourself was always the clever
boy. We'll do that same."

"You will so," Naggeneen replied, "and no good will it ever do you.
I've told you before and I tell you again, you'll never do the things
that men do. But it's crazy you are to try all ways, and I have to be
telling you the ways to try. Go on and do it, if it divarts you."

"And where'll we get the human child at all?" the Queen asked.

"Sure then," said Naggeneen, "and haven't you heard the news? Why,
there's a baby at the Sullivans' since this morning, and one at the
O'Briens' since this afternoon. The one at the Sullivans' is a boy
and the one at the O'Briens' is a girl. Go and get them and leave two
of your own people in their places. You know how to do that; it's
nothing new to you."

"Take a child from the O'Briens!" the Queen cried. "From them that's
always been so good to us and always given us the bit and sup, when
they scarcely had it themselves? I'd never do such a thing."

"But you'ld be leaving one of your own people in the place of it,"
Naggeneen answered, "and they'ld never know the differ. Or if they
did, it would be no matter. A woman makes a great hullabaloo when her
child looks sick and she thinks it's dying on her, but she doesn't
care at all after a little. And then, it doesn't die, and she thinks
it's her own child all the time, and there's no harm done. And His
Majesty here thinks it's going to do a power of good for all of you.
It's not, but he thinks it is."

"We'll never take a child from the O'Briens if I can help it," the
Queen said. "From the Sullivans I don't care, but not from the
O'Briens."

"We'll have to do it," said the King. "I don't like t