for them; and he went on thinking of what price
Peter would get, until, suddenly looking up the road, whom should he
see but Peter coming down the road with the bullocks in front of him.
He could hardly believe his eyes, and it was a long story that Peter
told him about two men who wanted to buy the bullocks early in the
morning. They had offered him eleven pounds ten, and when he would not
sell them at that price they had stood laughing at the bullocks and
doing all they could to keep off other buyers. Peter was quite certain
it was not his fault, and he began to argue. But Pat Phelan was too
disappointed to argue with him, and he let him go on talking. At last
Peter ceased talking, and this seemed to Pat Phelan a good thing.

The bullocks trotted in front of them. They were seven miles from home,
and fifteen miles are hard on fat animals, and he could truly say he
was at a loss of three pounds that day if he took into account the
animals' keep.

Father and son walked on, and not a word passed between them till they
came to Michael Quinn's public-house. "Did you get three pounds apiece
for the pigs, father?"

"I did, and three pounds five."

"We might have a drink out of that."

It seemed to Peter that the men inside were laughing at him or at the
lemonade he was drinking, and, seeing among them one who had been
interfering with him all day, he told him he would put him out of the
house, and he would have done it if Mrs. Quinn had not told him that no
one put a man out of her house without her leave.

"Do you hear that, Peter Phelan?"

"If you can't best them at the fair," said his father, "it will be
little good for you to put them out of the public-house afterwards."

And on that Peter swore he would never go to a fair again, and they
walked on until they came to the priest's house.

"It was bad for me when I listened to you and James. If I hadn't I
might have been in Maynooth now."

"Now, didn't you come home talking of the polis?"

"Wasn't that after?"

They could not agree as to when his idea of life had changed from the
priesthood to the police, nor when it had changed back from the police
to the priesthood, and Peter talked on, telling of the authors he had
read with Father Tom--Caesar, Virgil, even Quintillian. The priest had
said that Quintillian was too difficult for him, and Pat Phelan was in
doubt whether the difficulty of Quintillian was a sufficient reason for
preferring the police to the