Attention Saint Patrick | Page 9

But
we had to--till Moira and doubtless St. Patrick gave us the answer ye
saw today. If we're disowned, bedamned if we don't hang on! We can
feed ourselves now. We can feed some extra mouths. There'll be a ship
droppin' by out of curiosity now and then, and we'll trade with 'em. If
were disowned--we'll be poor. But when were the Irish ever rich?"
The committeeman who was a manufacturer of precision machinery
mopped his forehead.
"We're rich now," he said resignedly. "You'd be bound to learn it.
D'you know what the dinies' teeth are made of?"
"It's been said," said President O'Hanrahan, "that it's bor ... boron
carbide in organic form. What that means I wouldn't know, but we've
got a fine crop of it!"
"It's the next hardest substance to diamond," said the committeeman

dourly. "It's even been guessed that an organic type might be harder.
It's used for the tools for lathes and precision machinery, and it sells at
close to the price of diamonds of industrial quality--and I'll make a deal
to handle all we've got. What Earth don't need, other planets will.
You're rich."
The president stared. Then he gazed at Moira.
"It's a pity we're bein' disowned," he said mournfully. "It would be a
fine thing to be able to tell the grandfather Eire's rich and can feed more
colonists and even maybe pay back what it's cost to keep us here so
long. It would be a fine thing to hire colonists to build the houses they'll
be given free when they're finished. But since Sean O'Donohue is a
stern man----"
The ship owner scratched his head. He'd paused on the way to the
presidential mansion. He'd had restoratives for his distress. He'd looked
at the bottom of a bottle and seen the facts.
"I'll tell yea," he said warmly. "It's the O'Donohue's been battlin' to
keep the colony goin' against the politicians that wanted to economize.
He's made a career of believin' in this world. He's ruined if he stops. So
it might be that a little bit of blarneyin'--with him desperate to find
reason to stay friends, black creature or no black creatures----"
The president took Moira's hand.
"Come, my darlin'," he said sadly. "We'll reason with him."
* * * * *
Long, long minutes later he shook his head as Sean O'Donohue stormed
at him.
"The back o' my hand to you!" said Sean O'Donohue in the very
quintessence of bitterness. "And to Moira, too, if she has more to do
with you! I'll have naught to do with shenanigannin' renegades and
blasphemers that actually import snakes into a world St. Patrick had set

off for the Erse from ancient days!"
It was dark in the old man's room. He was a small and pathetic figure
under the covers. He was utterly defiant. He was irreconcilable, to all
seeming.
"Renegades!" he said indignantly. "Snakes, yea say? The devil a snake
there is on Eire! I'll admit that we've some good black creatures that in
a bad light and with prejudice yea might mistake. But snakes? Ye
might as well call the dinies lizards--those same dinies that are native
Erin porcupines--bad luck to them!"
There was an astounded silence from the bed.
"It's a matter of terminology," said the president sternly. "And it's not
the name that makes a thing, but what it does! Actio sequitur esse, as
the sayin' goes. You'll not be denyin' that! Now, a diny hangs around a
man's house and it eats his food and his tools and it's no sort of good to
anybody while it's alive. Is that the action of a lizard? It is not! But it's
notorious that porcupines hang around men's houses and eat the handles
of their tools for the salt in them, ignoring' the poor man whose sweat
had the salt in it when he was laborin' to earn a livin' for his family.
And when a thing acts like a porcupine, a porcupine it is and nothing
else! So a diny is a Eirean porcupine, native to the planet, and no man
can deny it!
"And what, then, is a snake?" demanded President O'Hanrahan
oratorically. "It's a creature that sneaks about upon the ground and
poisons by its bite when it's not blarneyin' unwise females into tasting'
apples. Do the black creatures here do anything of that sort? They do
not! They go about their business plain and open, givin' a half of the
road and a how'd'y-do to those they meet. They're sober and they're
industrious. They mind their own business, which is killin' the Eirean
porcupines we inaccurate call by the name of dinies. It's their
profession! Did yea ever hear of a snake with a profession? I'll not have
it said that there's snakes on