  The fundamental question addressed in this paper is whether the partial
Chapman--Enskog expansion $P_{xy}=-\sum_{k=0}^\infty \eta_k ({\partial
u_x}/{\partial y})^{2k+1}$ of the shear stress converges or not for a gas of
inelastic hard spheres. By using a simple kinetic model it is shown that, in
contrast to the elastic case, the above series does converge, the radius of
convergence increasing with inelasticity. It is argued that this paradoxical
conclusion is not an artifact of the kinetic model and can be understood in
terms of the time evolution of the scaled shear rate in the uniform shear flow.
