larence did not know that something of the same sort was said
to every lady, young or old, who ventured into Michael's boat. She was
greatly pleased and made a mental note of the words.

Michael Kane and Peter Gahan went over to a dirty and dilapidated boat
which lay on the slip. They seized her by the gunwale, raised her and
laid her keel on a roller. They dragged her across the slip and launched
her, bow first, with a loud splash.

"Step easy now, miss," said Michael, "and lean on my shoulder. Give the
young lady your hand, Peter. Can't you see the stones is slippy?"

Peter was quite convinced that all members of the bourgeois class ought
to be allowed, for the good of society, to break their legs on slippery
rocks. But he was naturally a courteous man. He offered Miss Clarence an
oily hand and she got safely into the boat.

The engine throbbed and the screw under the rudder revolved slowly. The
boat slid forward, gathering speed, and headed out to sea for Inishrua.

Michael Kane began to talk. Like a pianist who strikes the notes of his
instrument tentatively, feeling about for the right key, he touched on
one subject after another, confident that in the end he would light on
something really interesting to his passenger. Michael Kane was happy in
this, that he could talk equally well on all subjects. He began with the
coast scenery, politics and religion, treating these thorny topics with
such detachment that no one could have guessed what party or what church
he belonged to. Miss Clarence was no more than moderately interested.
He passed on to the Islanders of Inishrua, and discovered that he had at
last reached the topic he was seeking. Miss Clarence listened eagerly to
all he said. She even asked questions, after the manner of intelligent
journalists.

"If it's the island people you want to see, miss," he said, "it's well
you came this year. There'll be none of them left soon. They're dying
out, so they are."

Miss Clarence thought of a hardy race of men wringing bare subsistence
from a niggardly soil, battered by storms, succumbing slowly to the
impossible conditions of their island. She began to see her way to an
article of a pathetic kind.

"It's sleep that's killing them off," said Michael Kane.

Miss Clarence was startled. She had heard of sleeping sickness, but had
always supposed it to be a tropical disease. It surprised her to hear
that it was ravaging an island like Inishrua.

"Men or women, i