narrow lane, and crossed the road to the barrack. Just as he reached it the car, a large, opulent-looking vehicle, stopped outside Doyle's Hotel. Moriarty went into the barrack and wakened the sergeant. He had a keen sense of his duty towards his superior officer. It would not have been kind or right to allow the sergeant to sleep through an event so unusual as the stopping of a handsome motor outside the door of the Imperial Hotel.

The car was a large one, but it carried only a single traveller. He was a lean, sharp-faced man, clean shaven, with very piercing hard grey eyes. He blew three blasts on the horn of his motor. Then Mr. Doyle came out of the door. He blinked irritably at the stranger. The strong sunlight affected his eyes, and the rude way in which he had been awakened from his sleep overcame for a moment the natural instinct of the hotel keeper. All hotel keepers are civil to possible guests. Otherwise they would not succeed in their business. Mr. Doyle knew this, but he scarcely realised at first that the gentleman in the motor-car might be a guest. His was not a tourist's hotel and he had been very sound asleep.

"Say," said the stranger, "are you the proprietor?"

"I am," said Doyle.

"Can I register?" said the motorist.

The word was strange to Doyle, Guests at his hotel were very few. A commercial traveller stopped a night with him occasionally, trying to push the sale of drapery goods or boots in Ballymoy. An official of a minor kind, an instructor in agriculture, or a young lady sent out to better the lot of domestic fowls, was stranded now and then in Ballymoy and therefore obliged to spend the night in Doyle's hotel. But such chance strangers merely asked for rooms and food. They did not want to "register."

"Can you what?" said Doyle.

"Register," said the stranger.

"I don't know can you," said Doyle. "This is a backward place, but you might try them at the police barrack. The sergeant's an obliging man, and if the thing can be done I wouldn't doubt but he'd do it for you."

"You don't kind of catch on to my meaning," said the stranger. "What I want is to stop a day or two in your hotel."

Doyle suddenly realised the possibilities of the situation.

"You can do that of course," he said, "and welcome. I'd be glad if we had a gentleman like yourself every day of the week."

He turned as he spoke and shouted for Mary Ellen.

"Business pretty stagnant?" said the stranger.

"You may say that. Mary Ellen, Mary Ellen! Come here, I say."

The stranger got out of his car. He looked up and down the empty street.

"Guess," he said, "since I travelled in this slumbrous old country of yours I've seen considerable stagnation, but this licks the worst I've struck yet. Your town pretty well fathoms the depths. Are the folks here alive at all?"

"They are, of course."

Doyle looked round him as he spoke. He saw a good deal that the stranger missed. Sergeant Colgan and Constable Moriarty standing well back inside the barrack door, were visible, dim figures in the shadow, keenly alert, surveying the stranger. Young Kerrigan, the butcher's son, crouched, half concealed, behind the body of a dead sheep which hung from a hook outside the door of his father's shop. He too was watching. One side of the window blind of the Connacht Eagle office was pulled aside. Thaddeus Gallagher was without doubt peering at the motor-car through a corner of the window. Three small boys were lurking among the packing cases which stood outside a shop further down the street. Doyle felt justified in repeating his statement that many of the inhabitants of Ballymoy were alive.

"There is," he said, "many a one that's alive enough, though I don't say but that business might be brighter. Mary Ellen, I say, come here."

Mary Ellen appeared at the door of the hotel. She had improved her appearance slightly by putting on an apron. But she had not found time to wash her face. This was not her fault. Washing is a serious business. In Mary Ellen's case it would have taken a long time if it were to be in the least effective. Doyle's call was urgent.

"Why didn't you come when you heard me calling you?" he said.

Mary Ellen looked at him with a gentle tolerant smile. She belonged to a race which had discovered the folly of being in a hurry about anything. She knew that Doyle was not really in a hurry, though he pretended to be.

"Amn't I coming?" she said.

Then she looked at the stranger. He, being a stranger and apparently a man of some other nation, might perhaps really be in a hurry. Such people sometimes are. But his eccentricities in no way mattered to Mary Ellen. The wisdom of the ages was hers. The Irish have it. So have eastern peoples. They will survive when the fussy races have worn themselves out. She gave the stranger one glance of half contemptuous pity and then looked at the motorcar.

"Now that you are here," said Doyle severely, "will you make yourself useful?"

Mary Ellen stared at the motor-car. Her beautiful brown eyes opened very wide. Her mouth opened slightly and expanded in a smile. A long line of the black transferred from the kitchen kettle to her cheek reached from her ear to the point of her chin. It was broken as her smile broadened and finally part of it was lost in the hollow of a dimple which appeared. Mary Ellen had never before seen so splendid a motor.

"Will you stop grinning," said Doyle, "and take the gentleman's things into the house?"

"My name," said the stranger, "is Billing, Horace P. Billing."

"Do you hear that now?" said Doyle to Mary Ellen.

She approached the motor-car cautiously, still smiling. Mr. Billing handed out two bags and then a photographic camera with tripod legs, strapped together. Doyle took one of the bags. Mary Ellen took the other. Mr. Billing himself carried the camera.

"It occurs to me," said Mr. Billing, "that this town kind of cries out to be wakened up a bit."

"I wouldn't say," said Doyle, "but it might be the better of it."

Mary Ellen turned round and looked at Mr. Billing. She felt that he was likely, if he were really bent on waking up the town, to begin with her. It did not please her to be wakened up. She looked at Mr. Billing anxiously. She wanted to know whether he were the kind of man who would be able to rouse her to unusual activity.

"Where I come from," said Mr. Billing, "I'm reckoned to hustle quite considerable. I'd rather like to try if I could get a move on your folks."'

"You can try," said Doyle. "I'd be glad if you'd try, for the place wants it."

No harm could possibly come of the effort; and it was likely to occupy Mr. Billing for several days. The prospect was gratifying to Doyle. A guest who travelled in a very large motor-car might be made to pay heavily for his rooms and his meals.

Five small boys came out of different houses up and down the street. When Mr. Billing, Doyle and Mary Ellen entered the hotel the boys drifted together towards the motor-car. They walked all round it. They peered cautiously into it. The boldest of them prodded the tyres with his fingers. The window of the office of the Connacht Eagle was opened, and Mr. Thaddeus Gallagher looked out Young Kerrigan emerged from the shelter of the body of the dead sheep and stood outside the shop. His father joined him. Both of them stared at the motor-car. Sergeant Colgan, followed by Constable Moriarty, stepped out of the police barrack and stalked majestically across the street. The sergeant frowned heavily at the small boys.

"Be off out of that, every one of yez," he said.

The small boys retreated at once. The law, in spite of all that is said to the contrary, is greatly respected in the west of Ireland. Sergeant Colgan would have made it respected anywhere. His appearance was far more impressive than that of any judge in his robes of office. Constable Moriarty, who was more than six feet high, was impressive too.

"That's a fine car," said the