ts were approaching "the
supreme union of unctuous elements," as The Honourable put it, and in
the silence that fell for a moment there crept the words of the singer:

"And it's down the long side of Farcalladen Rise,
And it's swift as an arrow and straight as a spear--"

Jo Gordineer interrupted. "Say, Shon, when'll you be through that
tobogan ride of yours? Aint there any end to it?"

But Shon was looking with both eyes now at the collaborators, and he
sang softly on:

"And it's keen as the frost when the summer-time dies,
That we rode to the glen and with never a fear."

Then he added: "The end's cut off, Joey, me boy; but what's a tobogan
ride, annyway?"

"Listen to that, Pierre. I'll be eternally shivered if he knows what a
tobogan ride is!"

"Hot shivers it'll be for you, Joey, me boy, and no quinine over the bar
aither," said Shon.

"Tell him what a tobogan ride is, Pierre."

And Pretty Pierre said: "Eh, well, I will tell you. It is like-no, you
have the word precise, Joseph. Eh? What?"

Pierre then added something in French. Shon did not understand it, but
he saw The Honourable smile, so with a gentle kind of contempt he went
on singing:

"And it's hey for the hedge, and it's hey for the wall!
And it's over the stream with an echoing cry;
And there's three fled for ever from old Donegal,
And there's two that have shown how bold Irishmen die."

The Honourable then said, "What is that all about, Shon? I never heard
the song before."

"No more you did. And I wish I could see the lad that wrote that song,
livin' or dead. If one of ye's will tell me about your tobogan rides,
I'll unfold about Farcalladen Rise."

Prince Levis passed the liquor. Pretty Pierre, seated on a candle-box,
with a glass in his delicate fingers, said: "Eh, well, the Honourable
has much language. He can speak, precise--this would be better with a
little lemon, just a little,--the Honourable, he, perhaps, will tell.
Eh?"

Pretty Pierre was showing his white teeth. At this stage in his career,
he did not love the Honourable. The Honourable understood that, but he
made clear to Shon's mind what toboganing is.

And Shon, on his part, with fresh and hearty voice, touched here and
there by a plaintive modulation, told about that ride on Farcalladen
Rise; a tale of broken laws, and fight and fighting, and death and
exile; and never a word of hatred in it all.

"And the writer