Murray Leinster

“ 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. ”

“ President O'Hanrahan held himself with some dignity in the tumble-down reception hall of the presidential mansion. Moira gazed proudly at him. The two still-active members of the Dail Committee looked uncomfortably around them. The cabinet of Eire was assembled.
"It's sorry I am," said the President of Eire, "to have to issue a defiance to the Eire on Earth we owe so much to. But it can't be helped. We had to have the black creatures to keep the dinies from eating us out of house and home altogether. We've been fightin' a rear-guard battle, and we needed them. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 Eire! And I'll denounce yea as a conscienceless politician if yea dare to put such a name on the honest, friendly, industrious Eirean porcupine eaters that up to this moment have been the savin' of the colony! I'll not have it!"
There was a long silence. Then Sean O'Donohue spoke dryly: "Porcupine eaters, you say? Not snakes?" ”

“ The president explained as the boat bearing the committee neared the island.
"The big dinies," he said sadly, "trampled the fences and houses and ate up the roofs and tractors. It could not be borne. They could be driven away with torches, but they came back. They could be killed, but the people could only dispose of so many tons of carcasses. Remember, the big males run sixty feet long, and the most girlish females run forty. You wouldn't believe the new-hatched babies! They were a great trial, in the early days!"
Sean O'Donohue snorted. ”

“ 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. ”

“ President, we'd better have a cabinet meeting on it."
"What's the use," demanded the president. "I won't leave! I'll stay here, alone though I may be. There's nothing left in life for me anywhere, but at least, as the only human left on Eire I'll be able to spend the rest of my years knockin' dinies on the head for what they've done!" Then, suddenly, he bellowed. "Who let loose the snakes! I'll have his heart's blood——"
The Chancellor of the Exchequer peered around the edge of the door into the cabinet meeting room. ”

“ You've iron in your shoes and mainsprings in your watches and maybe pocket knives in your pockets. The dinies have a longin' for iron, and they go after it. They'll eat anything in the world that's got the barest bit of a taste of iron in it! Oh, it's perfectly all right, of course, but ye'll have to throw stones at them till the boat comes back. Better, find a good stout stick to whack them with. Only don't let 'em get behind ye!"
"Ye will?" roared the solicitor general, vengefully. ”

“ He suspected shenanigans going on behind his back. They did. His associates looked bleary-eyed. They'd been treated cordially, and they were not impassioned leaders of the Erse people, like the O'Donohue. One of them was a ship builder and the other a manufacturer of precision machinery, elected to the Dail for no special reason. They'd come on this junket partly to get away from their troubles and their wives. The shortage of high-precision tools was a trouble to both of them, but they were forgetting it fully.
"So the causeway was built," explained President O'Hanrahan. ”

“ They were replaced by lesser dinies, approximately the size of kangaroos. They also ate crops. They also hungered for iron. To them steel cables were the equivalent of celery, and they ate iron pipe as if it were spaghetti. The industrial installations of the colony were their special targets. The colonists unlimbered guns. They shot the dinies. Ultimately they seemed to thin out. But once a month was shoot-a-diny day on Eire, and the populace turned out to clear the environs of their city of Tara. ”

“ The president looked at her very unhappily.
"There's no need for shenanigans between us, Moira!" Then he said: "Couldn't ye be mistaken? Keepin' dinies locked up is like bottlin' moonlight or writin' down the color of Moira O'Donohue's eyes or——" He stopped. "How did ye do it?"
"The way you keep specimens," she told him. "When I was in college we did experiments on frogs. They're cold-blooded just like dinies. If you let them stay lively, they'll wear themselves out trying to get away. So you put them in a refrigerator. In the vegetable container. They don't freeze there, but they do ... ”

“ 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. ”

“ Patrick. It showed him pointing somewhere with his bishop's staff, while looking down at a group of snakes near his feet. The sculptor intended to portray St. Patrick telling the snakes to get the hell out of Eire. But on Eire it was sentimentally regarded as St. Patrick telling the snakes to go increase and multiply.
But nobody dared tell that to Sean O'Donohue! It was past history, in a way, but also it was present fact. On the day of the emergency cabinet meeting it was appalling fact. Without snakes the planet Eire could not continue to be inhabited, because of the little dinies. ”

“ They had thick bodies with unlikely bony excrescences, they had long necks which ended in very improbable small heads, and they had long tapering tails which would knock over a man or a fence post or the corner of a house, impartially, if they happened to swing that way. ”