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He drew an envelope from his pocket and worked the sum on the back of it.

"You'd get two and a quarter ton ashore in the day, as near as I can make it out."

"Why, I'd be" said Mr. Nicholson-Croly.

He in his turn figured rapidly with knitted brow. "I'd be over two months getting the whole cargo landed."

"You would," said the priest. "All that and more, for you haven't reckoned on Sundays and holydays. Besides, the men wouldn't stick at the work for you. There'd be the spring fishing to attend to, and the ploughing. Indeed, before you'd finished there'd be the harvest to get in."

Mr. Nicholson-Croly left the priest, and went, though not hopefully, to seek advice from the police barrack. He learned there that Mr. Normanstill, who lived at Rathmore, owned a tidy bit of a boat, a boat that might carry as much as five tons of potatoes at a time. It might be—the sergeant couldn't say for certain—but it might be that she could be borrowed.

Mr. Normanstill was the land agent, who lived by collecting rent from the inhabitants of Curraghmore. He disliked Father Gibbons. He very much disliked the Government. He nourished a special grudge against the imported potato scheme, because he had not been consulted about it. Also Mr. Normanstill was a humourist. When Mr. Nicholson-Croly called to treat for the loan or hire of the boat,