And then when you look back again, faith, they’re nowhere at all!”

“Did Mary O’Connor catch one?” asked Eileen.

“Did she now!” cried Grannie. “Listen to this. One day Mary O’Connor was sitting in her bit of garden, with her knitting in her hand, and she was watching some bees that were going to swarm.

“It was a fine day in June, and the bees were humming, and the birds were chirping and hopping, and the butterflies were flying about, and everything smelt as sweet and fresh as if it was the first day of the world.

“Well, all of a sudden, what did she hear among the bean-rows in the garden but a noise that went tick-tack, tick-tack, just for all the world as if a brogue-maker was putting on the heel of a pump!

“‘The Lord preserve us,’ says Mary O’Connor; ‘what in the world can that be?’

“So she laid down her knitting, and she went over to the beans. Now, never believe me, if she didn’t see sitting right before her a bit of an old man, with a cocked hat on his head and a dudeen (pipe) in his mouth, smoking away! He had on a drab-coloured coat with big brass buttons on it, and a pair of silver buckles on his shoes, and he working away as hard as ever he could, heeling a little pair of pumps!

“You may believe me or not, Larry and Eileen McQueen, but the minute she clapped her eyes on him, she knew him for a Leprechaun.

“And she says to him very bold, ‘God save you, honest man! That’s hard work you’re at this hot day!’ And she made a run at him and caught him in her two hands!

“‘And where is your purse of money?’ says she.

“‘Money!’ says he; ‘money is it! And where on top of earth would an old creature like myself get money?’ says he.

“‘Maybe not on top of earth at all, but i