causeway was built," explained President O'Hanrahan. "We drove the big beasts over, and rounded up all we could find—drivin' them with torches—and then we broke down the causeway. So there they are on McGillicuddy Island. They don't swim." 

 The boat touched ground—a rocky, uninviting shore. The solicitor general and the Chancellor of the Exchequer hopped ashore. They assisted the committee members to land. They moved on. The president started to follow but Moira said anxiously: 

 "Wait a bit. I've something to tell you. I ... said I'd experiment with the dinies. I did. I learned something." 

 "Did you now?" asked the president. His tone was at once admiration and despair. "It's a darlin' you are, Moira, but——" 

 "I ... wondered how they knew where iron was," said Moira hopefully, "and I found out. They smell it." 

 "Ah, they do, do they!" said the president with tender reverence. "But I have to tell you, Moira, that——" 

 "And I proved it!" said Moira, searching his face with her eyes. "If you change a stimulus and a specimen reacts, then its reaction is to the change. So I made the metal smell stronger." 

 President O'Hanrahan blinked at her. 

 "I ... heated it," said Moira. "You know how hot metal smells. I heated a steel hairpin and the dinies came out of holes in the wall, right away! The smell drew them. It was astonishing!" 

 The president looked at her with a strange expression. 

 "That's ... that's all I had time to try," said Moira. "It was yesterday afternoon. There was an official dinner. I had to go. You remember! So I locked up the dinies——" 

 "Moira darlin'," said President O'Hanrahan gently, "you don't lock up dinies. They gnaw through steel safes. They make tunnels and nests in electric dynamos. You don't lock up dinies, darlin'!" 

 "But I did!" she insisted. "They're still locked up. I looked just before we started for here!" 

 The president looked at her very unhappily. 

 "There's no need for shenanigans between us, Moira!" Then he said: "Couldn't ye be mistaken? Keepin' dinies locked up is like bottlin' moonlight or writin' down the color of Moira O'Donohue's eyes or——" He stopped. "How did ye do it?" 

 Prev. P 10/19 next