“Oh, you can’t believe what a professor says. Was he there?”

“He was not.”

“Well, then!”

“If you, sur, will excuse the liberty Oi’ll take, sur, in recommending you to kape silence fur a few minutes, sur, ye’ll know a good dale more whin ye lave here than ye did whin ye came, sur.”

“All right; go ahead.”

“These columns, sur, are basaltic.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a term used by Professor Gneiss. Now Oi’ll call ye’r attention to the ind av this column. That we call octagon, meaning eight-sided, as ye can see. And if yer measure the eight sides, sur, yer’ll foind them the same to a hair’s breadth.”

“And yet you say nobody chiselled it?”

“Oi do, sur.”