Very soon after the deputation left, Godfrey himself arrived. He wanted me to dismiss Crossan. I am not at all sure that I could dismiss Crossan even if I wanted to do so. He is the manager of our co-operative store, and although most of the money which went to the starting of that enterprise was mine there is a considerable number of small shareholders. Crossan also runs the fishing business and our saw mill. I capitalized both these industries, lending money to the men to buy nets and good boats, and buying the various saws which are necessary to the making of planks. This no doubt gives me some hold over Crossan, but not enough to enable me to dismiss him as I might a cook. Besides, I do not want to dismiss Crossan. He is managing these different enterprises in such a way that they earn fair interest on the capital I put into them. "I've been looking into things a bit, Excellency," said Godfrey. I quite believed that. The deputation of carters said the same thing in other words. "And you'll find yourself in an awkward place one of these days if that fellow Crossan is allowed to go on as he's going." "I hope you're not going to drag up that dispute about the carters, Godfrey. I'm sick of it." The dispute about the carters is really an unpleasant business. As originally organized there were eight Protestant carters and four Roman Catholics. A year ago Crossan dismissed the four Roman Catholic carters, and one of the Protestants who was suspected of religious indifference. Their places were filled by five Orangemen of the most determined kind. Now the profits of this carting business are considerable. The five men who were dismissed appealed to Godfrey. Godfrey laid their case before me. I gathered that Godfrey had a high opinion of the outcasts who always spoke to him with the respect due to his position. He had a low opinion of the five interlopers who were men of rude speech and democratic independence of manner. I was foolish enough to speak to Crossan about the matter. He met me with a blunt assertion that it was impossible to trust what he called "Papishes." There, as a lover of peace rather than justice, I wanted to let the matter rest; but Godfrey took up the subject again and again in the course of the following year. He persisted, not out of any love for justice though this once he was on the side of justice, but simply out of hatred of Crossan. "It's not only the dismissal of those carters," said Godfrey. "There's a great deal more behind that. There's something going on which I don't understand." "If you don't understand it," I said, "you can't expect me to." "Look here, Excellency, you remember the time that yacht of Conroy's, the _Finola_, was in here?" "Of course I do. You went and left my cards on Bob Power." "I'm very sorry now that I did. There's something fishy about that yacht. What was she doing on the night she was here?"