Then he told us it was Mr. Synge had sent him and we went with him.  Mr. Synge brought us into his kitchen and gave the men a glass of whisky all round, and a half-glass to me because I was a boy—­though at that time and to this day I can drink as much as two men and not be the worse of it.  We were some time in the kitchen, then one of the men said we should be going.  I said it would not be right to go without saying a word to Mr. Synge.  Then the servant-girl went up and brought him down, and he gave us another glass of whisky, and he gave me a book in Irish because I was going to sea, and I was able to read in the Irish.

I owe it to Mr. Synge and that book that when I came back here, after not hearing a word of Irish for thirty years, I had as good Irish, or maybe better Irish, than any person on the island.

I could see all through his talk that the sense of superiority which his scholarship in this little-known language gave him above the ordinary seaman, had influenced his whole personality and been the central interest of his life.

On one voyage he had a fellow-sailor who often boasted that he had been at school and learned Greek, and this incident took place:—­

One night we had a quarrel, and I asked him could he read a Greek book with all his talk of it.

‘I can so,’ said he.

‘We’ll see that,’ said I.

Then I got the Irish book out of my chest, and I gave it into his hand.

‘Read that to me,’ said I, ‘if you know Greek.’

He took it, and he looked at it this way, and that way, and not a bit of him could make it out.

‘Bedad, I’ve forgotten my Greek,’ said he.

‘You’re telling a lie,’ said I.  ‘I’m not,’ said he; ’it’s the divil a bit I can read it.’

Then I took the book back into my hand, and said to him—­’It’s the sorra a word of Greek you ever knew in your life, for there’s not a word of Greek in that book, and not a bit of you knew.’

He told me another story of the only time he had heard Irish spoken during his voyages:—­

One night I was in New York, walking in the streets with some other men, and we came upon two women quarrelling in Irish at the door of a public-house.

‘What’s that jargon?’ said one of the men.

‘It’s no jargon,’ said I.

‘What is it?’ said he.

‘It’s Irish,’ said I.

Then I went up to them, and you know, sir, there is no language like the Irish for soothing and quieting.  The moment I spoke to them they stopped scratching and swearing and stood there as quiet as two lambs.

Then they asked me in Irish if I wouldn’t come in and have a drink, and I said I couldn’t leave my mates.

‘Bring them too,’ said they.

Then we all had a drop together.

While we were talking another man had slipped in and sat down in the corner with his pipe, and the rain had become so heavy we could hardly hear our voices over the noise on the iron roof.