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Rh his own business and taking no more notice of Shiana than if he had never seen him.

"Well," said Shiana to himself, "there's the end of the showing off! It's easier since the curse has been taken off the malvogue and the chair and the tree. I suppose it can't have been put on again. At all events, I have nothing to do now but to go and see if I can buy some leather, and go and stick to the business I know best. If they are strong-smelling shoes, the people who wear them don't find any fault with them. It's a bad thing for a man not to be satisfied with what he has, little though it be. If I had my three shillings now, they would do my business as well as all the hundreds. But it's all right. It is no use talking about the thing. I'll go to Grey Dermot, and perhaps he might give me some leather on credit till the money for the shoes comes in. He has given me credit before, and I paid him fully and honestly."

By the time he had thought that, he was making straight for Dermot's door. Dermot himself was standing between the doorposts.

"Oh, Shiana, is that you?" said Dermot.

"'Tis, indeed," said Shiana. "Are you well, Dermot?"

"We have our health, thanks be to God for it! But what was this that happened to you lately? You are in everybody's mouth, and no two stories or two accounts about you are alike. One person says that you saw a ghost. Another says your house fell upon you. Another says a flash of lightning killed you. A fourth says that you have found some money that was going astray. And so on with all of them, each having his own conclusion about you.