The
Pooka Mac Phellimey, a member of the devil class, sat in his hut in the middle
of a firwood meditating on the nature of numerals and segregating in his mind
the odd ones from the even. He was seated at his diptych or ancient two-leaved
writing-table with inner sides waxed. His rough long-nailed fingers toyed with
a snuff-box of perfect rotundity and through a gap in his teeth he whistled a
civil cavatina. He was a courtly man and received honour by reason of the
generous treatment he gave his wife, one of the Corrigans of Carlow.