was a steamtram, but also farther away from the madding crowd in Wicklow, rightly termed the garden of Ireland, an ideal neighbourhood for elderly wheelmen so long as it didn’t come down, and in the wilds of Donegal where if report spoke true the coup D’OEIL was exceedingly grand though the lastnamed locality was not easily getatable so that the influx of visitors was not as yet all that it might be considering the signal benefits to be derived from it while Howth with its historic associations and otherwise, Silken Thomas, Grace O’Malley, George IV, rhododendrons several hundred feet above sealevel was a favourite haunt with all sorts and conditions of men especially in the spring when young men’s fancy, though it had its own toll of deaths by falling off the cliffs by design or accidentally, usually, by the way, on their left leg, it being only about three quarters of an hour’s run from the pillar.  Because of course uptodate tourist travelling was as yet merely in its infancy, so to speak, and the accommodation left much to be desired.  Interesting to fathom it seemed to him from a motive of curiosity, pure and simple, was whether it was the traffic that created the route or viceversa or the two sides in fact.  He turned back the other side of the card, picture, and passed it along to Stephen.

—­I seen a Chinese one time, related the doughty narrator, that had little pills like putty and he put them in the water and they opened and every pill was something different.  One was a ship, another was a house, another was a flower.  Cooks rats in your soup, he appetisingly added, the chinks does.

Possibly perceiving an expression of dubiosity on their faces the globetrotter went on, adhering to his adventures.

—­And I seen a man killed in Trieste by an Italian chap.  Knife in his back.  Knife like that.

Whilst speaking he produced a dangerouslooking claspknife quite in keeping with his character and held it in the striking position.

—­In a knockingshop it was count of a tryon between two smugglers.  Fellow hid behind a door, come up behind him.  Like that.  Prepare to meet your god, says he.  Chuk!  It went into his back up to the butt.

His heavy glance drowsily roaming about kind of defied their further questions even should they by any chance want to.

—­That’s a good bit of steel, repeated he, examining his formidable stiletto.

After which harrowing denouement sufficient to appal the stoutest he snapped the blade to and stowed the weapon in question away as before in his chamber of horrors, otherwise pocket.

—­They’re great for the cold steel, somebody who was evidently quite in the dark said for the benefit of them all.  That was why they thought the park murders of the invincibles was done by foreigners on account of them using knives.