t now, and pass the time o'
day!"

Then I waited, but they didn't answer. The little people always had been
shy. Yet without reaching a decision in so many words I knew suddenly
that I _had_ to talk to them. I'd come to the glen to work out a knotty
problem, and I was up against a blank wall. Simply because I was so
lonely that my mind had become clogged.

I knew that if I could just once hear the old tongue again, and talk
about the old things, I might be able to think the problem through to a
satisfactory conclusion.

So I stepped back to the tiny spaceship, and this time I struck it a
resounding blow with my fist. "Hear me now, little people! If you don't
show yourselves and come out and talk to me, I'll wreck this spaceship
from stem to stern!"

* * * * *

I heard only the leaves rustling softly.

"Do you understand? I'll give you until I count three to make an
appearance! One!"

The glade remained deathly silent.

"Two!"

I thought I heard a stirring somewhere, as if a small, brittle twig had
snapped in the underbrush.

"_Three!_"

And with that the little people suddenly appeared.

The leader--he seemed more wizened and bent than before--approached me
slowly and warily as I stood there. The others all followed at a safe
distance. I smiled to reassure them and then waved my arm in a friendly
gesture of greeting.

"Good morning," I said.

"Good morning," the foreman said with some caution. "My name is Keech."

"And mine's Houlihan, as I've told you. Are you convinced now that I
have no intention of doing you any injury?"

"Mr. Houlihan," said Keech, drawing a kind of peppered dignity up about
himself, "in such matters I am never fully convinced. After living for
many centuries I am all too acutely aware of the perversity of human
nature."

"Yes," I said. "Well, as you will quickly see, all I want to do is
talk." I nodded as I spoke, and sat down cross-legged upon the grass.

"Any Irishman wants to talk, Mr. Houlihan."

"And often that's _all_ he wants," I said. "Sit down with me now, and
stop staring as if I were a snake returned to the Island."

He shook his head and remained standing. "Have your say, Mr. Houlihan.
And afterward we'll appreciate it if you'll go away and leave us to our
work."

"Well, now, your work," I said, and glanced at the spaceship. "That's
exactly what's got me curious."

The others had edged in a bit now and were standing in a cir