“Do you know any way of getting it clear?”
“I do, of course.”
“Well, trot it out.”
“If you was to take the oars,” said Joseph Antony, “and was to row the boat round the way she wasn’t going when she twisted the rope on you it would come untwisted again.”
“It would, of course. Thank you very much. Rather stupid of us not to have thought of that. It seems quite simple. But that’s always the way. The simplest things are far the hardest to think of. Columbus and the egg, for instance.”
She got out the oars as she spoke and began turning the Tortoise round.
“Begging your pardon, Miss,” said Joseph Antony, “but which way is the rope twisted round the plate? If you row her round the wrong way you’ll twist it worse than ever.”
But luck favored Priscilla. When the Tortoise had made one circle the rope shook itself clear. Joseph Antony, dipping his oars gently in the water, drew close alongside.
“I’d be sorry now,” he said, “if it was to Inishbawn you were thinking of going. Herself and the children is away off. I’d have been afraid to leave them there with myself up at the quay with a load of gravel.”
Priscilla looked at him with a smile of complete scepticism.