G. A. Birmingham

“ Did you ask Father Gibbons why you couldn't sell them?"
"He can't understand it any more than I can."
"Oh, he can't understand it!" Mr. Normanstill grinned. "Do you know, it occurs to me that maybe the people are holding off in expectation of the second cargo."
"What second cargo?"
"Do you mean to tell me you don't know? Well, you must be the only man in the whole country who doesn't. Why, man, the gentlemen who came down to arrange about the potatoes said they were going to send another two hundred tons for free distribution among those who hadn't money to buy any of the first lot. ”

“ He in his turn figured rapidly with knitted brow. "I'd be over two months getting the whole cargo landed."
"You would," said the priest. "All that and more, for you haven't reckoned on Sundays and holydays. ”

“ Besides, the men wouldn't stick at the work for you. There'd be the spring fishing to attend to, and the ploughing. Indeed, before you'd finished there'd be the harvest to get in."
Mr. Nicholson-Croly left the priest, and went, though not hopefully, to seek advice from the police barrack. He learned there that Mr. Normanstill, who lived at Rathmore, owned a tidy bit of a boat, a boat that might carry as much as five tons of potatoes at a time. ”