osopher sternly.

"Have it your own way, sir, I'm not certain now how the creature is
afflicted."

"You say that this unhealthy woman has not got your wife's washboard. It
remains, therefore, that the fairies have it."

"It looks that way," said Meehawl.

"There are six clans of fairies living in this neighbourhood; but the
process of elimination, which has shaped the world to a globe, the ant
to its environment, and man to the captaincy of the vertebrates, will
not fail in this instance either."

"Did you ever see anything like the way wasps have increased this
season?" said Meehawl; "faith, you can't sit down anywhere but your
breeches--"

"I did not," said the Philosopher. "Did you leave out a pan of milk on
last Tuesday?"

"I did then."

"Do you take off your hat when you meet a dust twirl?"

"I wouldn't neglect that," said Meehawl.

"Did you cut down a thorn bush recently?"

"I'd sooner cut my eye out," said Meehawl, "and go about as wall-eyed
as Lorcan O'Nualain's ass: I would that. Did you ever see his ass, sir?
It--"

"I did not," said the Philosopher. "Did you kill a robin redbreast?"

"Never," said Meehawl. "By the pipers," he added, "that old skinny cat
of mine caught a bird on the roof yesterday."

"Hah!" cried the Philosopher, moving, if it were possible, even closer
to his client, "now we have it. It is the Leprecauns of Gort na Cloca
Mora took your washboard. Go to the Gort at once. There is a hole under
a tree in the south-east of the field. Try what you will find in that
hole."

"I'll do that," said Meehawl. "Did you ever-"

"I did not," said the Philosopher.

So Meehawl MacMurrachu went away and did as he had been bidden, and
underneath the tree of Gort na Cloca Mora he found a little crock of
gold.

"There's a power of washboards in that," said he.

By reason of this incident the fame of the Philosopher became even
greater than it had been before, and also by reason of it many singular
events were to happen with which you shall duly become acquainted.

CHAPTER IV

IT SO happened that the Leprecauns of Gort na Cloca Mora were not
thankful to the Philosopher for having sent Meehawl MacMurrachu to
their field. In stealing Meehawl's property they were quite within their
rights because their bird had undoubtedly been slain by his cat. Not
alone, therefore, was their righteous vengeance nullified, but the crock
of gold which had taken their community many thousands of years