“The Cluricaune,” replied Mr Button. “All dressed in green he was—musha! musha! but it’s only pretindin’ I am.”
The complaint from which he was suffering has this strange thing about it, that, though the patient sees rats, or snakes, or what not, as real-looking as the real things, and though they possess his mind for a moment, almost immediately he recognises that he is suffering from a delusion.
The children laughed, and Mr Button laughed in a stupid sort of way.
“Sure, it was only a game I was playin’—there was no Cluricaune at all—it’s whin I dhrink rum it puts it into me head to play games like that. Oh, be the Holy Poker, there’s red rats comin’ out of the sand!”
He got on his hands and knees and scuttled off towards the cocoa-nut trees, looking over his shoulder with a bewildered expression on his face. He would have risen to fly, only he dared not stand up.
The children laughed and danced round him as he crawled.
“Look at the rats, Paddy! look at the rats!” cried Dick.
“They’re in front of me!” cried the afflicted one, making a vicious grab at an imaginary rodent’s tail. “Ran dan the bastes!—now they’re gone. Musha, but it’s a fool I’m makin’ of meself.”
“Go on, Paddy,” said Dick; “don’t stop— Look there—there’s more rats coming after you!”
“Oh, whisht, will you?” replied Paddy, taking his seat on the sand, and wiping his brow. “They’re aff me now.”