The extreme oddness of the strange gentleman’s conduct affected both men profoundly. For fully five minutes they sat staring at the sea, motionless, save when one or the other of them thrust his head forward a little in order to spit. Kinsella at last got out his pipe, probed the tobacco a little with the point of his knife so as to loosen it, pressed it together again with his thumb, and then lit it. “I wouldn’t mind the sergeant,” he said, “cute and all as he thinks himself, I wouldn’t mind him. It’s the strange gentleman I’m thinking of.” The Tortoise stole round the end of the quay while he spoke. Kinsella eyed her. He noticed at once that Priscilla was steering with an oar. In his acutely suspicious mood every trifle was a matter for investigation. “What’s wrong with her,” he said, “that she wouldn’t steer with the rudder when she has one?” “It might be,” said Peter Walsh, “that she’s lost it. You couldn’t tell what the likes of her would do.” “She was in trouble this morning when I seen her,” said Kinsella, “but she had the rudder then.” Priscilla hailed them from the boat “Hullo, Peter!” she shouted. “Go down to the slip and be ready to take the boat. Have you the bath chair ready?” “I have, Miss. It’s there standing beside the slip where you left it this morning. Who’d touch the like? What’s happened the rudder?” “Iron’s broken,” said Priscilla, “and it must be mended tonight. I say, Kinsella, Jimmy’s leg isn’t near as bad as you’d think it would be, after having the horn of a wild bull run through it.” “It wasn’t a bull at all, Miss, but a heifer.” “I don’t see that it makes much difference which it was,” said Priscilla. “Do you hear that now?” said Kinsella to his friend in a whisper. “Believe you me, Peter Walsh, it’s as good for the whole of us that she’s not in the police.” “What’s that you’re saying?” said Priscilla. The boat, though the wind had almost left her sails, drifted up on the rising tide and was already past the spot where the two men were sitting. Peter Walsh got up and shouted his answer after her. “Joseph Antony Kinsella,” he said, “is just after telling me that it’s his belief that you’d make a grand sergeant of police.” “It’s a good job for him that I’m not,” said Priscilla. “For the first thing I’d do if I was would be to go out and see what it is he has going on on Inishbawn.” Peter Walsh, without unduly hurrying himself, arrived at the slip before the Tortoise. Priscilla stepped ashore and handed him the rudder. “Take that to the smith,” she said, “and tell him to put a new iron on it this evening. We’ll want it again tomorrow morning.” “I’ll tell him, Miss; but I wouldn’t say he’d do it for you.” “He’d jolly well better,” said Priscilla. “That same Patsy the smith,” said Peter Walsh, “has a terrible strong hate in him for doing anything in a hurry whether it’s little or big.”