bably dancing," I said.

"Much more likely to be drinking."

"I wish you wouldn't talk nonsense, Godfrey. You know perfectly well
that the store has not got a licence, and there's no drink sold there.
Besides Crossan is a fanatical teetotaller."

"That wouldn't stop him," said Godfrey, "if he could sell the stuff
cheap and make money on it; if"--here he sank his voice--"if it hadn't
paid duty."

Now Crossan is one of those Christians who has added to the original
Ten Commandments a Mohammedan prohibition of alcohol in any form.
Godfrey, I have no doubt, would break any of the commandments which he
recognized, if he saw his way to making a small profit on the sin. But
I did not think that even a 25 per cent. dividend would tempt Crossan
to disregard his self-imposed prohibition of alcohol.

"That's all nonsense," I said. "In the first place the _Finola_ didn't
come in here to land a cargo of smuggled goods."

"Then what did she come for?"

I did not know, so I ignored Godfrey's question.

"And in the second place Crossan wouldn't debauch the whole place by
making the men drunk night after night on smuggled spirits. Why, only
three weeks ago he spoke to me seriously about the glass of claret I
drink at dinner. He did it quite respectfully and entirely for my
good. I respected him for it."

"He's up to some mischief," said Godfrey, sulkily, "and it won't be
too pleasant for you, Excellency, when the Inland Revenue people find
out, and you are let in for a prosecution. I tell you that every night
for the last week men have been going up to that store after dark,
twenty or thirty of them, truculent, disrespectful blackguards out of
the Orange Lodge. I've watched them."

"Did you watch them coming out again?"

"I did, twice," said Godfrey. "They didn't go home till nearly one
o'clock in the morning. I couldn't stop up every night, so I only saw
them twice."

"Well," I said, "were they drunk?"

"No," said Godfrey, unwillingly, "they were not. They walked quite
straight."

"That explodes your theory then. If they had been drinking smuggled
spirits for hours and hours, they would have been drunk."

"They were at some mischief," said Godfrey.

"They were probably getting up a concert," I said.

"No, they weren't, for--"

"Look here, Godfrey," I said, "I've listened to you pretty patiently
for a long time; but I really cannot spare you the whole morning. If
you have anything to do I wish you'd go and do it.