hen I was writing my article on St.
Patrick's birthplace. I mean to ask him to dinner to-morrow."

That disposed of Marion and her smuggling theory. She gave me a
dutiful kiss and went to bed.

I stood at the window and watched until the last cart had mounted the
hill. The lights on the pier went out. A solitary boat rowed back to
the _Finola_. The town and bay were still again.

I shut the window and went back to my chair. I had some thoughts of
working up my vision of Malcolmson and his artillery into a short
article of a light kind, slightly humorous, with a vein of satire
running through it. I sometimes contribute articles of this kind,
under a pseudonym, to a London evening paper. Unfortunately my mind
refused to return to the subject. I was worried by the impossibility
of finding any explanation of the curious proceedings of the _Finola_.
The more I thought about the matter the less I was able to understand
it. Marion's smuggling hypothesis I dismissed as inherently absurd. It
is true that the government has withdrawn most of the coastguards from
our shores. We used to have twelve of them at Kilmore, and they were
pleasant fellows, always ready to chat on topics of current interest
with any passer-by. Now, having lingered on for some years with only
two, we have none at all. But, as I understand, coastguards are not
the real obstacle to smugglers and never were. The safety of the
revenue depends upon the perfection of the organization of its inland
officers which makes it impossible to dispose of whisky which cannot
show a respectable past history.

I was driven back finally on my own theory--inherently very
improbable--that the _Finola_ had, in the course of her voyage, netted
an immense catch of mackerel and had come into Kilmore harbour to get
rid of them.

CHAPTER V

Bob Power called on me next morning. Marion and I were busy at my
history of Irish rebellions when Bob was shown into the library. The
sun, I recollect, was shining so brightly outside that I had the
blinds pulled down in order to soften the light. Bob's entrance had
much the same effect as pulling up the blinds again. He brought the
sunshine with him, not in the trying form of heat and glare, but
tempered with a sea breeze, and broken, so it seemed to me, into the
sparkle of leaping waves. His work, the night before, whatever it was,
had not affected his spirits.

As a rule I dislike being interrupted when I am engaged in my lite