“It doesn’t seem to me,” he said, “that this boy ought to be sent to an asylum. I shall be glad to hear anything you have to tell me about him.” “Well now,” said Mr. Finnegan, “he’s a good, quiet kind of a boy, and if he hasn’t too much sense there’s many another has less.” “That’s what I think,” said Dr. Lovaway. Jimmy stopped blowing the fire and looked round suddenly. “Sure, I know well you’re wanting to put me away,” he said. “It’s for your own good,” said the sergeant. “It’ll do him no harm anyway,” said Finnegan, “if so be he’s not kept there.” “Kept!” said the sergeant. “Is it likely now that they’d keep a boy like Jimmy? He’ll be out again as soon as ever he’s in. I’d say now a fortnight is the longest he’ll be there.” “I wouldn’t like,” said Finnegan, “that he’d be kept too long. I’ll be wanting him for spring work, but I’m willing to spare him from this till Christmas if you like.” Dr. Lovaway, though a young man and constitutionally timid, was capable of occasional firmness. “I’m certainly not going to certify that boy as a lunatic,” he said. “Come now, doctor,” said the sergeant persuasively, “after coming so far and the wet day and all. What have you to do only to put your name at the bottom of a piece of paper? And Jimmy’s willing to go. Aren’t you, Jimmy?” “I’ll go if I’m wanted to go,” said Jimmy. The water boiled. Mrs. Finnegan was spreading butter on long slices cut from a home-baked loaf. It was Jimmy who took the kettle from the hook and filled the teapot. “Mrs. Finnegan,” said Dr. Lovaway, “why do you want the boy put into an asylum?” “Is it me wanting him put away?” she said. “I want no such thing. The notion never entered my head, nor Michael’s either, who’s been like a father to the boy. Only when Constable Malone came to me, and when it was a matter of pleasing him and the sergeant, I didn’t want to be disobliging, for the sergeant is always a good friend of mine, and Constable Malone is a young man I’ve a liking for. But as for wanting to get rid of Jimmy! Why would I? Nobody’d grudge the bit the creature would eat, and there’s many a little turn he’d be doing for me about the house.” Mr. Finnegan was hovering in the background, half hidden in the smoke which filled the house. He felt that he ought to support his wife. “What I said to the sergeant,” he said, “no longer ago than last Friday when I happened to be in town about a case I had on in the Petty Sessions’ Court--what I said to the sergeant was this: ‘So long as the boy isn’t kept there too long, and so long as he’s willing to go----’” Jimmy, seated again on his low stool before the fire, looked up. “Amn’t I ready to go wherever I’m wanted?” he said. “There you are now, doctor,” said the sergeant. “You’ll not refuse the poor boy when he wants to go?” “Sergeant,” said Dr. Lovaway, “I can’t, I really can’t certify that boy is a lunatic. I don’t understand why you ask me to. It seems to me----”