The approach was now clear, and Dr. Mangan began to advance.

"Well, he's just taken his degree. He's a doctor, and he's coming here
for a while. He can give me a help while he's looking out for a
dispensary. He'd like some place where he'd get a little hunting now
and then. I expect you know his father, Major--old Tom Aherne, of
Pribawn--"

Major Talbot-Lowry became more interested.

"You don't say old Tom's son is a doctor! By Jove! That's very
creditable to him--a decent old fellow Tom was--and you say he wants
to hunt? That's the right sort of doctor! Look here!"

Dick sat up, the light of inspiration woke in his ingenuous blue eyes,
he wrinkled his forehead with the super-intelligent concentration of a
not very brilliant intellect. "Didn't I hear that old Fogarty is
giving up the Dispensary here? Why don't you run him for that?"

The shepherding of Dick Lowry was really an affair of a simplicity
unworthy of preparation made by that _rusé_ old collie, the Big
Doctor. Nevertheless, being an artist, he continued to play the game.

"Knock Ceoil! Begad, that's a great notion! Now I come to think of it,
I did hear something of old Fogarty giving up, but somehow I never
thought of young Danny Aherne in connection with it. I thought I was
as well able as any man to put two and two together, but I declare I
might never have thought of it if it hadn't been for you! They say, if
you're too close to a thing, you can't see it!"