“I asked him what put it into his head that I could sail a boat, and he said O’Meara told him. O’Meara is a man I sail with occasionally, and I thought it nice of him to mention my name to this old boy. I can hoist a spinnaker all right and shift a jib, but I’m no good at navigation. Always did hate sums and always will. I told him that, and he said he could do the navigation himself. All he wanted was a good amateur crew for a thirty-ton yawl with a motor auxiliary. He had four men, and he asked me to make a fifth. I said I’d go like a shot. Strictly speaking, I ought to have been attending lectures; but what good are lectures?” “Very little,” I said. “In fact, hardly any.” “I wasn’t going to lose a cruise for the sake of any amount of lectures,” said Sam, “particularly with the chance of a tour on that sixty h.p. car thrown in.” Sam paused at this point. It seemed to me that he wanted encouragement. “You’d have been a fool if you had,” I said. “Up to that time,” said Sam thoughtfully, “I hadn’t tumbled to what he was at. I give you my word of honour I hadn’t the dimmest idea that he was after anything in particular. I thought he was simply a good old sport with lots of money, which he knew how to spend in sensible ways.” “The criminal part of the business was mentioned later on, I suppose?” “I don’t know that there’s anything criminal about it,” said Sam. “I’m jolly well sure it wasn’t wrong, under the circumstances. But it may have been criminal. That’s just what I want you to tell me. “I’ll give you my opinion,” I said, “when I hear what it was.” “Gun-running,” said Sam. Gun-running has for some time been a popular sport in Ireland, and I find it very difficult to say whether it is against the law or not. The Government goes in for trying to stop it, which looks as if a gun-runner might be prosecuted when caught. On the other hand, the Government never prosecutes gun-runners, even those who openly boast of their exploits, and that looks as if it were quite a legal amusement. I promised Sam that I would consider the point, and I asked him to tell me exactly what he did. “Well,” he said, “when I heard it was gunrunning I simply jumped at the chance. Any fellow would. I said I’d start right away, if he liked. As a matter of fact, we didn’t start for nearly a fortnight. The boat turned out to be the _Pegeen_. You know the _Pegeen_, don’t you?” I did not. I am not a sailor, and except that I cannot help seeing paragraphs about _Shamrock IV_. in the daily papers I do not think I know the name of a single yacht.