THE GRAY LAKE
"I can see every colour in the water except gray," said the lady who was something of a sceptic.
"That," said the humorist, tilting back his straw hat, "is the very reason they call it the Gray Lake. The world bristles with misnomers."
"Which explains," said the lady sceptic, "why they call Eamonn a seannachie."
"Hi!" called out the humorist. "Do you hear that, Eamonn?"
"Cad tá ort?" asked Eamonn. He had been leaning out over the prow of the boat, looking vaguely into the water, and now turned round. Eamonn was always asking people, "Cad tá ort?" and before they had time to answer he was saying, or thinking, something else.
"Why do they call this the Gray Lake?" asked the lady sceptic. "It never looked really gray, did it?"
"Of course it did," said Eamonn. "The first man who ever saw it beheld it in the gray light of dawn, and so he called it Baile Loch Riabhach, the Town of the Gray Lough."
"When might that be?" asked the lady sceptic drily.