Margaret described the man as far as she was able. "I seen him!" cried Norah Brannigan. "I seen him shtandin' on the dock a-talkin' to this blissed child jist as we was castin' off--after the plank was in--and then he took a handspring, he did, over the rail." "Philip!" "Mama!... mama!... I didn't say anything--only--only--" It ended in a burst of weeping. "Only what, Philip?" She was wild with anxiety. "Tell mama what you said." "Only that--that--mama!... I thes told him--I--wasn't--any--girl-l!" "Oh, Philip! Philip!" While mother and son were thus reckoning their accounts Norah Brannigan had on her thinking cap, and this article on the head of an Irish girl often covers quick wits. "You are dead sure, mem, that this man will get the child once we reach the 'Soo'?" "Oh, yes, yes! I am perfectly certain of it now." "Well," said Norah Brannigan, with an encouraging wink of her left eye, "what's the matter wid givin' him the shlip?" "How can I--away off here in the Lake?" Margaret asked despairingly. "We are not in the Lake now, mem, nor in the Straits of Mackinac, nayther. We are at this moment enterin' St. Mary's River, mem, and sure it is a good omen that it is named for a mother that had to run off wid her own child. Pray to her, mem! pray to her!" Then, her religious sense appeased, she went on with shrewd acumen, "And wud ye take a chance, now?" "I would do anything! anything!" "And cud the gur-l or b'y, whichever it is by that time--" she was looking down sternly at Philip, winking one eye at Margaret meantime--"cud he be depinded on, mem? because," added Norah Brannigan, cruelly, "ef he should turn baby now, and git skeered--and cry--or blab--" she spoke slowly, that he might take it all in, and Philip was regarding her with the closest attention--"why, he wud upset our whole kittle o' fish, mem." Philip turned to his mother with the most earnest protestation. "Mama, I _won't_! I won't cwy--or--or b-blag--or upset any fish!" "I think," said Margaret, taking the little tear-stained face between her palms and looking searchingly into his eyes, "I think--I believe--that he can be depended on. Now, what is your plan?" The stewardess took her to the stateroom window and pointed over to the mainland at the left. "Ye see them houses, and the shmoke--there just beyant the light-house on the point?" "Yes, yes." "That, mem, is Detour, our first shtop. Within the hour we'll be there, and--" "Well?" "--and there," said Norah Brannigan, with a nod and a significant closing of her left optic, "is where we give him the shlip." "Oh, we can't! we can't!" cried Margaret, in despair. "Don't you know that he will be on the watch for everybody that leaves the boat? If there was only somebody there to help us!" Margaret groaned. "But alone--" "Sure, mem, and there is." "Who?" "Michael Callaghan." "And who is Michael Callaghan?"