uted the Thin Woman passionately.

"I will not," said the Philosopher. "In certain ways sleep is useful.
It is an excellent way of listening to an opera or seeing pictures on
a bioscope. As a medium for day-dreams I know of nothing that can equal
it. As an accomplishment it is graceful, but as a means of spending a
night it is intolerably ridiculous. If you were going to say anything,
my love, please say it now, but you should always remember to think
before you speak. A woman should be seen seldom but never heard.
Quietness is the beginning of virtue. To be silent is to be beautiful.
Stars do not make a noise. Children should always be in bed. These are
serious truths, which cannot be controverted; therefore, silence is
fitting as regards them."

"Your stirabout is on the hob," said the Thin Woman. "You can get it for
yourself. I would not move the breadth of my nail if you were dying of
hunger. I hope there's lumps in it. A Leprecaun from Gort na Cloca Mora
was here to-day. They'll give it to you for robbing their pot of gold.
You old thief, you! you lobeared, crock-kneed fat-eye!"

The Thin Woman whizzed suddenly from where she stood and leaped into
bed. From beneath the blanket she turned a vivid, furious eye on her
husband. She was trying to give him rheumatism and toothache and lockjaw
all at once. If she had been satisfied to concentrate her attention on
one only of these torments she might have succeeded in afflicting her
husband according to her wish, but she was not able to do that.

"Finality is death. Perfection is finality. Nothing is perfect. There
are lumps in it," said the Philosopher.

CHAPTER V

WHEN the Leprecaun came through the pine wood on the following day he
met two children at a little distance from the house. He raised his open
right hand above his head (this is both the fairy and the Gaelic form of
salutation), and would have passed on but that a thought brought him
to a halt. Sitting down before the two children he stared at them for a
long time, and they stared back at him. At last he said to the boy:

"What is your name, a vic vig O?"

"Seumas Beg, sir," the boy replied.

"It's a little name," said the Leprecaun.

"It's what my mother calls me, sir," returned the boy.

"What does your father call you," was the next question.

"Seumas Roghan Maelduin O'Carbhail Mac an Droid."

"It's a big name," said the Leprecaun, and he turned to the little girl.
"What is your name, a ca