I invited Power to dinner, and
urged him to bring McNeice with him if possible. I made it quite plain
that I was not inviting Godfrey. Power accepted the invitation, and
sent us off in a boat. I said good-bye firmly to Godfrey at the end of
the pier. I was annoyed with him for cross-questioning our host at his
own table. Marion and I walked home. Godfrey walked up the hill
towards the co-operative store. I am sure he did not want to see
Crossan. I cannot suppose that he would venture to catechise McNeice.
I expect he meant to prowl round the premises in hopes of discovering
casks of smuggled brandy or cases full of tobacco.

McNeice came to dinner, and I am bound to say that I found myself very
nearly in agreement with Godfrey's opinion of him. He was a singularly
ill-mannered man. Power devoted himself to Marion, and I felt at once
that their conversation was not of a kind that was likely to be
interesting either to McNeice or me. They were talking about ski-ing
and skating in Switzerland. McNeice made no effort to talk at all. He
sucked his soup into his mouth with a loud hissing noise, and glared
at me when I invited him to admire our scenery. His fish he ate more
quietly, and I took the opportunity of reminding him of our
correspondence about St. Patrick. The subject roused him.

"There are," he said, "seventeen different theories about the place of
that man's birth."

I knew nine myself, my own, of which I was a little proud, being the
ninth. I did not expect McNeice to deliver a harangue on the whole
seventeen, but that is what he did. Having bolted his fish, he began
in a loud, harsh voice to pour contempt on all attempts at
investigating the early history of our national saint. He delayed our
progress through dinner a good deal, because he would neither refuse
nor help himself to the _entree_ which my butler held at his elbow. It
was not until he had finished with the whole seventeen theories about
the saint that he turned his attention to dinner again. I ventured to
suggest that he had not even mentioned my own theory.

"Oh," he said, "you have a theory too, have you?"

My theory, at the time of its first appearance, occupied ten whole
pages of the _Nineteenth Century_, and when republished, with notes,
in pamphlet form, was reviewed by two German papers. I felt hurt by
his ignorance of it, and reminded him again that we had corresponded
about the subject while I was writing the article.

"If you've time