STAGE
PLAYS

 

FAUSTUS KELLY

Characters in the play

KELLY CULLEN REILLY HOOP SHAWN KILSHAUGHRAUN TOWN CLERK MRS. MARGARET CROCKETT HANNAH CAPTAIN SHAW THE STRANGER

Chairman of the Urban Council Members of the Council An ex-T.D., also a member A Corkman A widow Her maid A visitor ?

Faustus Kelly was first performed at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, on 25 January 1943, with the following cast:

KELLY	F. J. McCormick
CULLEN	Fred Johnston
REILLY	Michael J. Dolan
HOOP	Denis O’Dea
SHAWN KILSHAUGHRAUN	Brian O’Higgins
TOWN CLERK	Cyril Cusack
MRS. MARGARET CROCKETT	Ria Mooney
HANNAH	Eileen Crowe
CAPTAIN SHAW	Gerard Healy
THE STRANGER	Liam Redmond

Directed by Frank Dermody

Designed by Michael Clarke

PROLOGUE

Stage is blacked out. A faint white light picks out the head and shoulders of the DEVIL and the head of KELLY. The DEVIL is standing behind KELLY, who is seated signing a diabolical bond. When he has it signed, the DEVIL reaches out a green-tinted claw and snatches up the document with a sharp rustling noise. Immediately there is a complete black-out.

ACT I

The setting of the First Act is the Council Chamber, which is also used by the TOWN CLERK as his office. It is a spacious room with a window at side, left; the door is left. The TOWN CLERK’S desk with adjacent typist’s table and various office effects are on the right-hand side of the room. In the remaining two-thirds of the floor space stand the large table and chairs used for meetings of the Council. The side of the table faces audience and one side should be long enough to accommodate four chairs. REILLY and KILSHAUGHRAUN sit at the ends in ACT I. At back is a recessed platform railed off and marked with a sign ‘SILENCE: Public Gallery.’ When the curtain goes up CULLEN and REILLY are discovered in casual attitudes, evidently waiting for the others.

CULLEN: That was a bad business out the road, Martin.

REILLY: I was just saying today that if we didn’t do something to control them motorcars, they’ll wipe out the whole lot of us.

CULLEN: I wouldn’t blame the motorcar, Martin. The motorcar is man’s friend. Fair is fair. Blame where blame is due, as the man said. Where do you leave Mister John Barleycorn?

REILLY: O, I know. I’m not making any excuse for that, the driver was fluthered, I’m told. And the lady was no better. A very bold article, I believe, with a man’s breeches on her—

CULLEN: Well, there you are! A young drunken pup flying around the country in transports of intoxication, killing hens, cows, pigs and Christians—and you blame the motorcar! What sort of reasoning is that, man?

REILLY: (With great feeling.) I’d like to see all the motorcars in the world destroyed.

CULLEN: Faith, Martin. I often think you’re not all in it.

REILLY: I’m sure of one thing—it’s only in a motorcar you’d see a bold article like her with her trousers and her brazen face and her big backside.

CULLEN:(Laughing.) Ah, Martin, you’re very hard on the poor motorcars.

REILLY: (Paying no attention.) Isn’t it a terrible thing to have young people misbehavin’ and drivin’ around drunk and killin’ people? Is it any wonder they have them retreats above in the Chapel?

CULLEN: Maybe they were brother and sister.

REILLY: And what brother, in God’s name, would let his sister go around with pants on?

CULLEN: (Doubtfully.) O, I don’t know. (Reflectively.) My own sister Maggie, now, or a girl with that class of a figure. . . .

REILLY: (Exploding.) Get away outa that, man, for pity’s sake. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. . . . (Gets up and looks out of window. Comes back frowning.) There’s nothing but trousers in Russia, I’m told. Men, women and children go about all day working at ingines and thrashing machines, no privacy or home-life or respect for womanhood. That’s where you ought to be, in Russia. Away out with a crowd of madmen thrashing and working away for further orders. Father Peter was telling me that a business like that can’t last. Couldn’t possibly last.

CULLEN: (Smiling some good-humour back into the conversation.) Russia, is it? Ah, a beautiful but distant land. The Russian bear, the Russian steamroller. The Volga, the Vistula and the Dnieper. The grave of Napoleon’s Grand Army. Never fear, Martin, ould Ireland’s good enough for me. (He pauses.) The Big Man, Mr. Kelly, is late tonight. So are the others.

REILLY: The Chairman’s late every night but always in time to bawl off some unfortunate man that’s two minutes later. (He sits.)

CULLEN: True enough. Do you remember the night he went for me? (Mimicking.) Am I to understand, Mr. Cullen, that you desire to have your name recorded as having been present at this meeting? Don’t exert yourself talking, Mr. Chairman, says I, till you get your breath back, because them stairs would kill a horse! (Laughs appreciatively.) Wasn’t it good? He was just in before me. ‘Don’t exert yourself talking, Mr. Chairman, till you get your breath back, because them stairs would kill a horse.’

REILLY: (Very drily.) Yes.

CULLEN: I think I hear the bould Shawn.

REILLY: (Makes a grimace of distaste and rises stiffly and shambles to the window.) Well, for God’s sake keep him off politics because that fellow has me worn out with his politics.

CULLEN: Good evening to you, Shawn.

(SHAWN KILSHAUGHRAUN enters from main door, back right. He is a thick, smug, oafish character, dressed in a gawkish blue suit. He exudes a treacly good-humour, always wears an inane smile and talks with a thick western brogue upon which sea-weed could be hung. Hangs hat on stand, right of door.)

SHAWN: Bail o Dhia annso isteach. Hullo, Tom. And how is Martin.

REILLY: (Sourly.) Martin is all right.

SHAWN: (Expansively.) Well, isn’t it the fine-glorious summer evening, thanks be to God. Do you know, the air is like wine. I’m half drunk, drinkin’ it in. Ah, but ‘tis grand. A walk on a day like that would do you as much good as a good iron tonic.

CULLEN: It’s great weather, there’s no doubt. I’d like to take off all my clothes and lie out in the meadow as stark naked as God made me.

REILLY: (Turning quickly from the window.) You’d get all you want of that carry-on in Russia. You can wheel a wheelbarra down the main street of Moscow without a stitch on you and the people will say you’ve a nice new barra. That’s the place for you—Russia. (Sits right of table.) He’s off to Russia, Shawn, that’s the latest.

SHAWN: Do you tell me so?

REILLY: He’s going to make his sister, Maggie, wear trousers and drive a thrashing-mill. If he could find a mine, he’d send me and you down, to be working with pneumatic artillery in the bowels of the earth and blasting tons of rocks and stuff down on top of us. Two miles down he’d send us.

SHAWN: Yerrah, now, you’re coddin’ me surely. You’re trying to take a rise out of me. (Sits left of table.)

CULLEN: Don’t mind him, Shawn.

SHAWN: But who would see him if he was stretched in his natural state in the meadow? Sure the grass is up to here, look, and lovely rich juicy Irish grass it is.

CULLEN: Certainly.

SHAWN: Sure if you drove a small motorcar into my meadow in the morning, you wouldn’t know where to look for it in the evening. (Caressingly.) Lovely, tall, nourishing, splendid grass, food and drink for any taste. And nice fresh crisp hay it will make, gorgeous golden hay. You won’t find anything like it outside Ireland.

REILLY: What about the Czar’s grass beyond in Russia?

CULLEN: Ah, sure the ould Czar went to the wall years ago. Years ago, man.

SHAWN: As a young man, the Russian Revolution was a thing that fired me imagination.

REILLY: If you ask me, them Russians would ate any hay you gave them. Damn the one of them ever heard of a good plate of bacon and cabbage. Vodka and beans is all the order there, I believe. How would you fancy that after ten hours on the thrashing-machine?

SHAWN: A man was once telling me that in Russia they do have the new potatoes in March. I daresay it’s due to the Gulf Stream. Imagine a plate of new spuds on St Patrick’s Day. They’d have the new peas, too. (With feeling.) Begorrah, I’d spend ten years on a thrashing-machine for that.

CULLEN: (At the window.) I think I see a certain Town Clerk wending his weary way.

SHAWN: I believe that man Stalin is a black Protestant.

REILLY: He looks like an Orangeman to me.

CULLEN: Here he is. (Mimics Cork accent.) Good ev’nin’. How are ye’s at all? Is de Big Man not here? Shhhhhh!

(The TOWN CLERK enters. He is a small perky man of about 30, wears the fáinne and is well dressed. He has a strong Cork accent.)

TOWN CLERK: Good ev’nin’. How are ye’s at all? Isn’t it very warm? Is de Big Man not here? (He goes to desk left.)

REILLY: Mr. Kelly is having a few rossiners down the way and will be here when the temperature below his belt has risen to the right pitch.

TOWN CLERK: (Taking papers from desk and going to table.) I was thinking of going up to Dublin tomorrow, please God, to see the Minister’s Private Secretary. He’s a personal friend of me married sister and he’s half-Cork on the da’s side. . . . He’s a right dacent man, I met him wan time at the Metropole Hotel in Cork and we got on together . . . (he looks up) like two canaries in a cage.

SHAWN: You’re roight, me bucko. A soft . . . well-made . . . dacent . . . God-fearing . . . Irish gentleman.

TOWN CLERK: Yerrah, don’t be talking to me. I was inside the hotel with Paddy Hourigan, the Lord have mercy on him, an’ didn’t we run into the Minister’s Secretary on the stairs.

SHAWN: Ah, Paddy Hourigan, may God be good to him, for a finer, neater, better-made, dacenter Irishman never wore a hat.

TOWN CLERK: Yerrah, don’t be talking to me. “Meet Mr. Hinnissey,” says Paddy. (He faces the company.) “I don’t know Mr. Hinnissey,” says the Minister Secretary, “but I’ve heard all about him.” “Come into the bar,” says he to me, “and have a glawsheen.”

REILLY: And I suppose you walked in and drank the pockets off him.

TOWN CLERK: Now, Martin, now, now——

REILLY: You’re another man that ought to go to Russia.

TOWN CLERK: Russia?

REILLY: Begob, they’d know how to handle you there, me boyo. They don’t believe in letting able-bodied young fellas live like leeches on the backs of the ratepayers there—no bloody fear. You’ll work for your money there, not heating the seat of a stool but out drivin’ ingines with the sweat and the muck plastered on you.

TOWN CLERK: I’ll go tomorrow if the Council pays me fare.

REILLY: (Angrily, his voice rising.) By God, they’d make a man of you, then, if they had you out there. Damn the Russian ratepayer you’d live on. You wouldn’t get away with this four fifty a year stuff, with fees for fairs and markets.

TOWN CLERK: (Laughs as he sits, going through files.) Ah, dear-a-dear.

SHAWN: (Seriously.) Tell me, Martin. Phwat are the rates in Russia at the present time?

REILLY: The rates?

SHAWN: Ay, the rates.

REILLY: (Puzzled.) Well, I don’t know the figures but I know this—the unfortunate ratepayers out there aren’t saddled with thruppence in the pound for teaching Irish and filling the heads of a lot of poor chisellers with ‘taw may go h-mahs’ and ‘Gurramahaguts’ and the Lord knows what bogman’s back-chat.

TOWN CLERK: Ah, ná bí ag cainnt!

REILLY: You shut your Cork gob and keep it shut!

SHAWN: Now isn’t it a terrible ting to see two fine grand Irishman fighting and back-biting one another to their faces? Isn’t it a great shame to see ye playing England’s game in the offices of the Urban District Council?

CULLEN: (Going back to table and sitting.) I suppose it’s true that Kelly’s going up at the by-election.

REILLY: O, it’s true enough. My God, imagine that bags a T.D.!

SHAWN: I do, I do. The Chairman is going to stand. ‘Tis great trouble and tribulation, a T.D.’s life. ‘Tis no life for an idealist.

TOWN CLERK: Do you know, Shawn, there’s wan thing that often puzzled me, many’s a time I meant to ask you about it. How did you come to lose your seat at all, at all?

SHAWN: I’ll tell you, boy. Instid . . . of getting work on the roads for strong farmers . . . and instid of getting young farmers’ sons into the Electricity Supply Board . . . and instid of getting the old age pinshin for men with big fortunes that weren’t the age . . . phwat was I at only planting little fir trees on the mountains that I love above meself.

CULLEN: Tell me, Shawn, have you got the time for God’s sake? What time is it by your gold watch and chain?

SHAWN: (Takes out large metal watch.) I do, I do. The correct time according to me wireless is ten minutes past nine.

TOWN CLERK: Mr. Kelly must have been delayed on the road. I want to have a private conversation with him about me visit to Dublin.

REILLY: Ten to one you’re off to Dublin to work some election twist for Kelly.

TOWN CLERK: De Chairman’s all in favour of keeping de Minister on our hands. The two is personal friends, I believe. Did you get any offer for that small farm o’ yours, Shawn? The one out de Lochatubber road?

SHAWN: I do. A man rang me up on the wire about it four days ago offering four hundred pounds. Well, do you know, I took him to task. Listen to me here, man, says I, do you know that the man you are talking to is Shawn Kilshaughraun? Do you take me, says I, for a gawm from Kirry or some hungry remote cold distant townland in the County Cork?

REILLY: Maybe he knew his man. By God, I wouldn’t fancy doing business with you.

TOWN CLERK: Now, Martin. (He puts a finger to his lips.) You’ve had yer say. Hould yer whisht for pity’s sake.

(He walks to desk and takes large ledgers, brings them to his table and works at them.)

SHAWN: Sure he hadn’t a word to say when I was finished talking to him. Don’t you know, says I, that the soil of me little farm is (caressingly) the grandest, finest, richest fertile land in de whole country. I was talking to an Inspector from the Department about the soil. Mr. Kilshaughraun, says he, you’ll be surprised at what I’m goin’ to tell ye.

CULLEN: What did he say?

SHAWN: Do you know, says he, that in all me travels I have nivir come across soil the like of this. It has phosphates, says he, and the divil knows what. I disremember the names of all the fine, grand, nourishing, rich, juicy properties of me soil. Sure Lord save us, haven’t I a field of oats up there now, as yellow as a bantam’s tail, as thick as a girl’s hair, sure you’d nivir find yer way out if you walked into it.

REILLY: Sure don’t I pass it every Sunday on me walk after Mass, a rough-lookin’ hungry farm of rocks and scraws that would wear the hands off five men to get any satisfaction out of it in a month of Sundays. Sure don’t I know it well. Six pound valuation on land, four on buildings. (Bitterly.) Ask the Town Clerk. Sure it’s down on the list.

TOWN CLERK: Dat’s right, dat’s right.

REILLY: Ask the Chief Executive Officer of the Urban Council, four fifty a year with fees for fairs and markets for the privilege of sitting on his Cork backside! Do you know, I think I’m going off me head in his place. . . . What in the name of God is keepin’ that Chairman? I’ve a good mind to go home and leave him without his quorum.

CULLEN: Yerra, take your time, Martin. Sure what would you be doin’ at home only annoying Mrs. Reilly, yer good long-suffering wife, with your great unrest of mind.

TOWN CLERK: (Working at his books.) Well, do you know, these books are in a terrible condition of confusion. Full of blanks. Do ‘oo know phwat the Council was paid four years ago for twenty-seven planks that were sold to de County Surveyor?

SHAWN: (Expansively.) A good strong well-made, well-seasoned plank of prime timber is worth twelve shillings and sixpence.

TOWN CLERK: (Tapping his ledger.) Blank! That’s what was paid—Blank!

(He rises again and goes to desk to get papers.)

REILLY: Of course, the poor man that was here before you had the great misfortune to be born in this town. He was not a smart maneen from Cork with his degrees and all his orders, he was only paid four pounds a week and fees for markets turned in to the Council (his voice rises), he was only an ordinary unassuming decent Irishman that took a bottle of stout like the rest of us, with no flying up to Dublin to the Departments to suck up to a lot of thumawns and pultogues and fly-be-nights. . . .

(Quite suddenly the door is opened by KELLY. He is accompanied by THE STRANGER—a small dark middle-aged man who is formally dressed in striped trousers, black coat and wears a bowler hat. He carries a briefcase. He is motioned into the public gallery at the back of the stage and throughout the Act he sits immovably with his hat on, facing the audience. He receives many curious looks from those present. KELLY is dressed in a black overcoat, dark scarf and hard hat. He wears glasses, has a cunning serious face. In his left hand he carries dark leather gloves. He has taken the company completely by surprise. They preserve a complete and surprised silence, which KELLY naturally takes as a tribute to his own great importance. The others seem to be asking themselves whether he has been listening outside the door for a time before coming in. SHAWN says ‘Hullo.’ KELLY closes the door with great care. He then takes his overcoat off slowly, hangs it up, puts his hat on the same peg and comes forward to the table slowly and abstractedly, his gaze being downwards and meeting nobody’s eye. He then looks up with a mechanical smile.)

KELLY: Good evening, gentlemen. Good evening, Town Clerk. A pleasant summer evening, thank God. How is your good lady, Martin? I believe she had a touch of cold.

REILLY: (Non-committally.) Mrs. Reilly is all right, thank ye.

KELLY: Ah, good. Shawn, I want a word with you afterwards at your convenience. (He rubs his hands together briskly.)

SHAWN: I do, I do. With pleasure, Chairman.

KELLY: I want you to see the Minister about a certain matter. A word in the right place, you know. A little matter I want set right. There is certain backstairs work going on about the Fair Green, cattle-jobbers and publicans butting at one another to get the site changed, first here and then there. Result: delay, delay, delay. No Fair Green and the streets up to your ankles in it of a fair day. (He realises that he still has his gloves in his hand: sighs.) But that’s another matter. It’s not on the Agenda.

(He turns and walks back to his coat to leave his gloves.)

SHAWN: I endorse, and I re-endorse, every word you say, Chairman. The streets, of a fair day, are a crying, desperate, insanitary shame. Isn’t it a terrible thing to have publicans putting down money to have the Fair held at their doors? Wouldn’t it make you disheartened in democracy? Wouldn’t it now?

(KELLY returns to the table, sits down carefully in the large chair at the head of it, sighs and smiles indulgently.)

KELLY: Human nature, Shawn, not democracy. Poor old human nature.

CULLEN: It doesn’t matter where you hold the Fair, you’ll have to drive the animals there and back and how are you going to make them behave themselves?

TOWN CLERK: (Moving over to the Chairman’s left with a heap of ledgers.) I was just saying, Chairman, that I’m off to Dublin some of these fine days to the Department about a certain ting. The personal touch is a very important ting, you know.

REILLY: ‘Touch’ is right. Up to Dublin on the ratepayers’ money to bum drinks off the highest in the land and to work some electioneering twist.

KELLY: Gentlemen, we must have some order, some system, a little mutual respect. The Town Clerk will go to Dublin when he is instructed to do so by the Council. In the meantime, Mr. Reilly, he is entitled to the respect that is due to his office—

REILLY: Ah, yerra——

KELLY: —as Chief Executive Officer of this town. The dignity of the town is represented in his person.

REILLY: (Sarcastically.) I see.

SHAWN: Just as a Minister or a deputy is entitled to the respect that is due to the sovereign people of Ireland. Do you understand me, Martin? The Irish nation. (He begins to pick his teeth.)

CULLEN: I don’t see anything wrong with the Town Clerk, and Cork isn’t the worst place to come from. Didn’t Foley the sculptor come from Cork.

REILLY: Who?

CULLEN: Foley.

REILLY: I suppose he died for Ireland, too.

KELLY: (He raps the table gently with his spectacle-case.) Now, gentlemen, order, ORDER. A little bit of order, now. Mr. Kilshaughraun, I would like your attention, please.

SHAWN: (Desisting from picking his teeth abstractedly.) I do, I do, Mr. Chairman, I do, I do.

KELLY: And yours, Mr. Cullen. Mr. Reilly, too. I have a meeting with the P.P. at nine and we will want to proceed with expedition . . . and despatch so that I may get away in time. A little matter of the Christmas Coal Fund, very trivial but very important to the unfortunate poor of this town. Now, Town Clerk.

TOWN CLERK: (In a toneless, official voice.) De following members are absent from this meeting, Mr. P. Meady, Mr. George Pealahan, Mrs. Mary Corkey——

SHAWN: (With feeling.) Ah, the poor woman, the poor . . . suffering . . . patient . . . pious . . . decent, saintly . . . soul, she’ll never lave that bed again. Sure I seen her——

TOWN CLERK: (Raising his voice.) Mr. J. D. Callen and Mr. Joe Hoop.

CULLEN: I agree with you.

SHAWN: Dr. Dan says it’s only a question of time. Decent woman, too. (JOE HOOP enters.) O, here’s Joe. Good night Joe, you’re just in time.

HOOP: (In a pronounced northern accent and giving a broad smile.) Good night.

(He is a tall, youngish man, hatless and coatless, wears glasses and is of somewhat studious aspect. He carries what appears to be a novel in his hand. He slumps into his chair, opens the book, which he holds half under the table, and begins to read it. He pays no attention whatever to the meeting, reading his book steadily to the end. He sits right of table between REILLY and CULLEN.)

TOWN CLERK: (Speaking in a toneless headlong babble.) The Minutes of the last meeting. Letter from the Department was read in connexion with the Council’s housing scheme: letter was noted. Letter from the Commissioners of Public Works was read in connexion with de preservation of de old clocktower in Hogan Street: ordered dat de Council view dis proposal with approval and Town Clerk to co-operate with de Commissioners to de best of his ability, no charge to fall upon de rates from his preservation proposal. Letter read from de Department in connexion with de Council’s share in next year’s allocation under de Free Milk Scheme: ordered dat de Council press for high allocation in view of large number of expectant mothers now on de rates and de depressed state of de town ginerally. (His voice tails off as a conversation begins.)

CULLEN: Tell me, Chairman. Is it true you’re going up at the byelection?

KELLY: That is a big question, Mr. Cullen.

REILLY: If you’re not, it won’t be for want of having a high opinion of yourself, anyway.

CULLEN: It’s all over the town that you’re going up.

KELLY: Gentlemen, I am not yet quite certain where my duty lies. My desire is to serve. Whether I can best serve by offering myself as a candidate for the national parliament is a matter of consideration.

REILLY: (Impatiently.) Are you going up? Yes or no? Cut out the blather.

KELLY: This much I will say. I have been pressed to go forward. Certain friends are very insistent. Certain friends will not take No. I may have to stand eventually to satisfy them. I only wish I was as worthy as their opinion of me would indicate.

REILLY: It must be terrible to be pushed like that against your will.

CULLEN: Well, more luck to you if you do decide to stand. You’ll get two votes from my house, anyway.

KELLY: Thank you, Mr. Cullen.

REILLY: Begob, if you ask me, this bloody country’s on its last legs. With you in parliament it’ll be the limit altogether.

KELLY: I’m not in the parliament yet, Mr. Reilly. Let us cross that bridge when we come to it. Proceed, Town Clerk.

TOWN CLERK: Letter read from Miss Peake, typist, asking de Council for increase of 5/- a week in her salary: ordered dat de increase be given in view of Miss Peake’s valuable services to de Council and de Community, subject to de sanction of de Minister for Local Government and Public Health and Department to be informed dat Miss Peake has five years’ unblemished service in which she discharged her duties with great zeal and efficiency to de satisfaction of de Council and de Town Clerk and dat she worked late on several occasions in de office of de Town Surveyor when he was getting his works into order and dat she is a very good girl in every way. Letter read from de Department inquiring what action de council took on Circular letter of 10th May in connexion with de cleaning of burial ground: ordered dat de department be informed dat de grave-yard is in a first-class condition and always has been and dat no action be taken on de Circular. De Council discussed de disgraceful condition of de footpath in Emmet Street near de Chairman’s house. Chairman said dat de place was a menace to life and limb of a dark night and dat de road contractor be warned to put the road into proper repair de way he found it and dat de Town Surveyor be ordered to put up a new lamp at dis place, which is very dangerous to pedestrian and vehicular traffic of a dark night. (Voice trails off.)

CULLEN: Do you know, I don’t see any necessity for an election. There’s no need for it.

REILLY: You’re right there. We’re as bad as we are, but there’s no reason for getting ourselves into a worse mess.

CULLEN: Because what have they to do only get together, sink their differences and form a strong national government, a government that everybody in the land will respect?

KELLY: Ah, Mr. Cullen, if only poor old human nature could be mastered; if only we could re-mould the universe nearer to the heart’s desire. I’m afraid poor old human nature is the trouble.

REILLY: Don’t deprive the poor Chairman of his chance, Tom.

CULLEN: Why not, Mr. Kelly?

KELLY: I fear such a plan would not work, Mr. Cullen.

(TOWN CLERK, still at Minutes, mumbles something about filling of Rate Collectorship.)

CULLEN: But why, Mr. Kelly?

KELLY: Because between the parties, Mr. Cullen, there is what we call . . . an ideological . . . antipathy.

REILLY: A what?

KELLY: Do I make myself clear, Mr. Cullen?

CULLEN: (Very doubtful.) Well . . . that’s right, too . . . but still. . . .

KELLY: Oil and water, Mr. Cullen.

CULLEN: All the same, I don’t see why they don’t bury the hatchet and forget their differences and form a good strong national government composed of the best elements in the country. I mean—who wants an election?

REILLY: The Chairman.

KELLY: (Sternly.) What the Chairman wants, Mr. Reilly, is a little order so that we may transact our business. The election is a constitutional requirement and must be accepted by all loyal citizens. (He turns to Town Clerk and signs Minute Book. Then, briskly:) Now, Town Clerk, what have we got on the Agenda?

TOWN CLERK: (Briskly.) I’ve a few letters here, Chairman. Here’s the usual one from the Tourist Association asking for the three guineas. We pay every year.

SHAWN: (Nodding heavily.) I do, I do. Nivir was money better spent. We must do everything in our power to bring the beauties of this town that is so full of grand . . . historical . . . rich . . . archaeological and scenic wonders to the notice of the world at large—and to the notice of our own grand flesh and blood beyond the seas, the seadivided Gael in America. Not three guineas I’d give them but four.

REILLY: I never seen an American in this town in me life bar lads that come with Duffy’s Circus.

CULLEN: Ah, sure we might as well pay. It won’t break us.

KELLY: I think we are agreed that the subscription should be renewed. It would be a very retrograde step to cancel it. Results in such cases must be slow.

TOWN CLERK: (Repeating slowly what he is writing.) ‘Ordered . . . dat . . . de subscription . . . be . . . renewed.’ (Proceeds.) I’ve a letter here again from lad Shandon about de Small Dwellings loan. It’s not a nice letter at all. He’s very sharp. He talks about gombeen men. Will I read it for ye?

KELLY: (Annoyed.) No. Mark the letter ‘read.’

REILLY: I’ll back up any ratepayer but not that tinker’s son. Tell him to go and have a jump for himself.

KELLY: (Fingering his watch.) Now, Town Clerk, what else have we?

TOWN CLERK: I’ve another letter from de Department here about Miss Peake de typist. (He lifts his head from his papers.) Begorrah, do ‘oo know, they are very angry with us. (He reads.) ‘De proposal cannot in any circumstances be entertained. This officer is on her present scale, thirty shillings by five to forty-five shillings, for only one year and it is considered that this represents adequate remuneration having regard to de extent of her duties.’

REILLY: (Angrily.) I suppose what we think doesn’t matter.

SHAWN: Ah, you know, the Government machine is a very slow . . . sure . . . finely tempered instrument. They do have to refuse everything to be on the safe side.

REILLY: (Ignoring SHAWN, his voice rising.) I suppose the chosen and elected representatives of the people don’t matter at all. They’re just something for some jackeen in a Dublin back-office to kick around.

KELLY: (In mild deprecation.) Now, Mr. Reilly, where will that get us?

CULLEN: (Innocently.) It’s a shame, because Miss Peake is a nice good little girl. A cousin of your own, Martin, I believe? A fine girl, God bless her.

REILLY: And what are you yapping about? What about it if she is a cousin of mine? Doesn’t she earn her hard-earned salary?

CULLEN: Lord, I never said a word against her.

TOWN CLERK: Of course, de increase would have to come out of de rates.

REILLY: (Exploding.) What are you bleating and blathering about, you Cork fly-be-night, bleeding and besting the ratepayers to the tune of four hundred and fifty pounds a year with your fine fat fees for fairs and markets, too bloody cute to take a bottle of stout but up to Dublin on the bum on the two train every Saturday?

KELLY: Order, Mr. Reilly, please. ORDER!

REILLY: I don’t give a damn for you, the Minister or anybody else. (He snaps his fingers.) I don’t give that for you.

SHAWN: Yerra, now, we’ll put de increase up again.

KELLY: I propose that we ask the Minister to reconsider the matter, Mr. Kilshaughraun, to kindly interest himself in the matter on behalf of the Council. Is that agreed?

(REILLY, CULLEN and SHAWN relax.)

TOWN CLERK: (Recording the decision.) Carried unanimously, Nem. con., as the man said.

KELLY: (Briskly.) Well, next business, please.

TOWN CLERK: De next item is de election of a rate collector for de Number Two district. (Sensation.)

REILLY: (Astonished.) WHAT!

CULLEN: (Seriously, very surprised.) What’s this, in the name of God? How could that be? How in God’s name could that be, Town Clerk?

REILLY: (In a steady, cold voice.) You’re a bloody Cork liar.

KELLY: (With firm but unemphatic precision.) Gentlemen, I am informed by the Town Clerk that the next business is the election of a Rate Collector. I am bound to consider it—

REILLY: (Excited.) Be God, this sort of stuff won’t work. You won’t get away with this. There was no Notice of Motion. Ye can’t fill a job without Notice of Motion—

KELLY: As a matter of simple fact, Mr. Reilly, there was. Let us have accuracy if nothing else.

CULLEN: I don’t understand this at all. I never heard a word about it.

REILLY: There was no Notice of Motion. This is some class of ready-up, and I’m not going to sit here and stand for it.

SHAWN: I do, I do. There was Notice of Motion all right. I remimber it well. Handed in be the Chairman himself.

CULLEN: It’s the first I heard of it and that’s the God’s truth.

REILLY: Be God, there’s a ready-up here.

KELLY: Town Clerk, was there Notice of Motion? Kindly acquaint the members with the facts of the situation.

REILLY: (Roaring.) BE GOD, THERE’S A READY-UP HERE. There’s a dirty crooked deal been put through here, if there isn’t my name isn’t Reilly. Some fly-be-night is being walked in onto the ratepayers’ backs.

KELLY: Town Clerk, will you please answer my inquiry and do so expeditiously?

TOWN CLERK: (Searching among his records.) Notice of Motion was handed in by the Chairman in the following terms, that is to say (pause): ‘I hereby give notice that I shall move at the next meeting of the Council that de vacancy for a rate collector in de Number Two district should be filled.’ (He looks up.) Sealed, signed and delivered to me in person by the said Chairman. Sure it’s all here in black and white in me book.

(KELLY puts his head in his hands wearily.)

REILLY: (Excitedly.) Be Gob, you have it all off, haven’t you? It’s down in your little book. (The phone rings.) It’s down in your little book!

TOWN CLERK: (Rising to answer phone and ignoring REILLY.) Excuse me now, gents.

REILLY: (Almost shouting at TOWN CLERK, who has risen to cross room to his own table where the phone is.) It’s all down in your bloody little book, you Cork twister.

KELLY: Order, Order! Please control your language or I’ll leave the Chair.

TOWN CLERK: (On phone.) Hello, hello! Are you there? Who’s dat?

REILLY: You’ll leave the Chair? I dar you to leave the Chair. I dar you and I double-dar you to leave the Chair—

TOWN CLERK: (Shouting above Reilly’s voice.) Hello! HELLO! Who, Shawn? Shawn Kilshaughraun? He is. He is indeed. Hold on to the wire now, avic! (He turns to the meeting.) A call for yourself, Shawn, boy.

REILLY: (Banging the table.) Because if you leave the Chair, you won’t be able to wheel your own man into this job (his voice rises) and by the time the matter comes up again there’ll be a full quorum here—THAT’S WHY YOU WON’T LEAVE THE CHAIR!

SHAWN: (Loudly and unctuously on the phone.) I do, I do. Shawn Kilshaughraun speaking.

REILLY: THAT’S WHY YOU WON’T LEAVE THE CHAIR!

CULLEN: Ah, now there’s too much bitterness in this room tonight, God forgive us all.

KELLY: At any rate there is far too much shouting and noise. Nothing is the worse for being quietly said. We don’t shout when we are saying the most important thing we ever say and that’s our daily prayers. (SHAWN on phone: I do, I do.) We are bound to consider everything on the Agenda. We have no alternative. We must do everything in an orderly way, we must have some system. Notice of Motion first and then deal with the matter in due form and in proper time at the next meeting following. Order, a respect for the rules of civilised order, will enable us to do our work efficiently and promptly.

REILLY: I SAY THAT’S WHY YOU WON’T LEAVE THE CHAIR! YOU’RE AFRAID OF YOUR BLOODY LIFE TO LEAVE THE CHAIR! YOU’RE AFRAID OF YOUR BLOODY LIFE TO LEAVE THE CHAIR!!

SHAWN: (From the phone.) I do, I do. Certainly. What’s that? What? WHAT?

KELLY: (Severely.) This much I will say, Mr. Reilly. Your language is not only a reflection on yourself but an insult to Council and an affront to the people of this town. In offering abuse to my person as Chairman of this elective assembly, you offer it to your fellow townspeople. Having said that much, I will say no more. I will pass from that and ask the Council to deal with that matter which has been brought forward in due order by the Town Clerk. I refer to the filling of the vacancy in the Number Two district.

SHAWN: (On the phone.) She is, boy. A lovely . . . mild . . . grand . . . good-natured article. I do, I do.

REILLY: (Very quickly.) If you go ahead with this twist, well and good, but you’ll rue the day, you’ll rue the day—mind that. (His voice rises.) There was no Notice of Motion except what was cooked by that crooked Town Clerk. You must give notice under the Public Bodies Order. (His voice rises to a shout and he bangs on the table.) I take me stand to the Public Bodies Order. (He rises, kicks back his chair and stamps to the window, where he remains with his back to the audience: he turns his head and shouts.) I take me stand to the Public Bodies Order.

CULLEN: Now, Martin, we have to go by what is written in the official Minute Book of the Clerk. If he says there was, that’s an end to it.

TOWN CLERK: Shure who would believe a Corkman?

SHAWN: (On the phone.) I do, I do.

KELLY: Very well, gentlemen. I propose the appointment of a very excellent person who has always impressed those that know him with his modest and gentlemanly bearing. Though not a native to this town—indeed he is a stranger to it—he has come among us from larger and busier haunts of men—I refer to the capital city of our land—and given those of us who have the honour to partake of social intercourse with him the benefit of an experience that is both wide and expressive of all that is best in contemporary affairs.

REILLY: Lord save us! Lord save us!

KELLY: A graduate of the National University which was founded by Cardinal Newman to enable the cream of our Catholic youth to partake of the benefits of University education, he read a distinguished course and gave every satisfaction to his masters. In the field of athletics he gave no mean account of himself, being to this day the possessor of a silver-cup for the long jump. A member of the Gaelic League for ten years, he speaks the old tongue with a fluency that many a person twice his age might well envy. As straight as a rod in character, honest as the sun, courteous in all his dealing with his fellow men, I think he is the most suitable person we could hope for. I therefore propose formally that he be appointed by the Council. I think we are lucky and privileged to have him.

REILLY: (Who has half-turned from the window to listen to this address with exaggerated signs of astonishment.) I wonder who this fellow is when he’s at home. Begob, there’s wonderful people living in this town that I never met. He has the Irish, too, wha—? Taw shay mahogany! Kaykee will too!

(SHAWN, who has been listening intently at the phone suddenly bursts into a roar of rough laughing, which subsides into long gurgles with ‘I do, I do’ discernible here and there.)

CULLEN: Who is this, Mr. Chairman? His name?

KELLY: O, I beg your pardon. The gentleman’s name is (he hesitates and stammers in confusion) . . . Strange—Mr. Strange.

SHAWN: (On the phone.) I do, I do, sure I could go down there any day on me bicycle, I could meet you in Biddie Brannigan’s and have a glass of good Irish whiskey with you, what grander, finer thing could we do?

(REILLY, who has left the window, walks right through the room and comes to rest facing down at the Chairman with his back three-quarters to the audience.)

KELLY: Mr. Hoop, perhaps you would second my proposition. Perhaps you would be good enough.

HOOP: (Looking up from his book.) Aye, surely.

TOWN CLERK: (Reading what he is writing.) Seconded by Councillor Joseph Hoop.

REILLY: (Still glaring down, speaking in a hard, subdued voice as if genuinely shocked.) I have seen many queer dirty jobs done in this room in me time but my God Almighty, I never thought I’d live to see this. Some fly-be-night that was never seen or heard of in this town, as sure as God a relation of the Chairman’s or of that fancy widow Crockett that he’s running after. WHO IS HE? Where is he from? Is he going to be wheeled in onto the ratepayers’ backs just because he’s related to the Chairman’s fancy woman?

KELLY: (Angrily, rising to his feet.) That’s enough of that talk! I’ll thank you to keep Mrs. Crockett’s name off your bad discourteous tongue.

REILLY: (Excitedly.) Is that why? Eh! My God Almighty! (He rounds on the others.) Are yez going to stand for that? Eh!

KELLY: This man is intoxicated!

TOWN CLERK: He is a little bit inebriated with his own verbosity, if I may so remark.

CULLEN: Martin, you’re going too far. I always support the Chairman. He has never nominated a bad man yet. In any case the Minister will only sanction a man that is A1. I think we might give this man a trial. I don’t know him personally.

REILLY: (In a low voice.) Tom, Tom, I’m ashamed of you. This man really wants to get his own or this widow’s relations in by the back door—(he points) look at that face of him, did you ever see shame plainly written on a man’s face so plain!

KELLY: May God forgive you, you ignorant and slanderous traducer of people who never hurt you.

SHAWN: (On phone.) He married a grand big heifer of a woman. I do, I do.

REILLY: (Exploding.) Because I’m not going to stand for it. I’m not going to stay here in the same room with such criminality. (He makes a mad rush for the coat-stand, grabs his hat, rushes to the door, wheels round and shouts a final denunciation:) We’ll see, we’ll see, whether you’ll drive a coach and four through the Public Bodies Order. We’ll see whether the Public Bodies Order is just a bit of paper! Wait and see, wait and see!

(He slams the door and is gone. There is complete silence. KELLY mops his brow.)

SHAWN: (On phone, very softly.) I do, I do, I do.

TOWN CLERK: De proposal is passed, subject to de Minister’s sanction. Begob, that’s what you’d call a man that’s very violent in himself, God be good to him.

KELLY: (Philosophically.) This much I will say. As a younger man I was myself inclined to be a bit . . . contumacious. A bit . . . contumelious. Later I came to a realisation of the golden virtue of temperance. I do not refer to the subject of intoxicating drink. My allusion is rather to temperance of hand, act and tongue. For, after all, what is a gentleman but one who has his temper under perfect control? The exhibition we have witnessed is saddening. It was all very . . . very . . . sad. Let no man say, however, that I pass judgement. Nothing of the kind. Mr. Reilly is a man for whom I have the highest regard. He has many golden qualities. He has his failings, too, one of them he displayed tonight. Gentlemen, I am very sorry.

(The door is thrown open, interrupting the Chairman’s address. REILLY rushes in bare-headed with a hat in his hand. He hurries to the stand, puts the hat on it, takes another one off it and jams it on his head. Then he rushes out again and slams the door, without a glance at the table.)

KELLY: More I will not say. Let us now pass from that and return to what is public rather than personal. Town Clerk, what is the next item?

TOWN CLERK: (Jauntily slapping his book closed.) The next item, Mr. Chairman, is a smoke. The meeting is finnee.

CULLEN: Ah, good.

(There is a general relaxation. SHAWN is muttering a few soft ‘I do’s’ on the phone. JOE HOOP stands up, marches to the door, turns and gives a loud thick smiling ‘Good night’ and is gone. CULLEN starts putting on his coat and hat briskly.)

CULLEN: I’m so afraid we’ll have rain. My corns are telling me so.

SHAWN: (On phone, simultaneously with following conversation.) Ah, yes. I do, I do. The little ferim. It is indeed. A rich . . . fertile . . . richly cultivated . . . grand . . . fine . . . delightful . . . little ferim. Ah, glory be to God, a grand . . . rich . . . fertile . . . glorious . . . well appointed . . . healthy . . . herbaceous . . . delightful ferim of land . . . yes.

KELLY: (Rising wearily.) And small harm it would do us, Martin, the wheat is a bit backward.

CULLEN: (Going out.) O, true enough. Good night.

SEVERAL VOICES: Good night, now!

SHAWN: (On phone.) Yes boy. I do, I do. Lovely, thick, nourishing grass, grand . . . green . . . fertile . . . sweet . . . lovely grass, sure I’ve eaten some of it myself, it’s food for man and baste, boy.

KELLY: (Producing his pipe and beginning to fill it.) Town Clerk, we will have a word together in the morning about (He numbers them on his fingers.)—the coal fund—the grant for Patrick Street—the scavenging contract. We must look into these things. We must take our coats off. Too many cooks here. You and I must get something done. We will feel fresher for tomorrow and please God we’ll put our shoulders to the wheel.

TOWN CLERK: (Absorbed in his papers.) I’ll be here all day. Any time you like. (He looks over his watch and is startled; he rushes over to SHAWN and nudges him urgently.) Gob, look at this crow, Come on out o’ that man! It’s ten to ten! IT’S TEN TO TEN, MAN! See you later, Chairman! (He grabs his hat and rushes out. KELLY thoughtfully strikes a match and begins to kindle his pipe. SHAWN stands up still holding the telephone.)

SHAWN: (Urgently.) Well, goodbye, now, avic, I’m called away on hard . . . important . . . business. I’ll see you on Thursday, boy. Bye, bye, now.

(He slams down phone, grabs his hat and rushes out with a ‘Bye, bye, Chairman.’ KELLY grunts a reply. When they are all gone THE STRANGER comes down noiselessly and gives KELLY a great start by appearing suddenly at his elbow and beginning to talk in a very eerie colourless voice.)

THE STRANGER: I congratulate you. There was no doubt that I would get the job but nevertheless I congratulate you. Before many moons are past you will be a T.D. and every other wish you have will be gratified.

KELLY: (A bit agitated.) Yes, quite. Quite. Good.

THE STRANGER: I will supply money and votes and everything that is required. Your love for Mrs. Crockett will prosper. And now that I am a rate collector, there will be no undue comment about my staying in the town. I now have locus standi in the neighbourhood.

KELLY: Quite. And as rate collector you’ll have charge of the register of electors. The rate collector idea was a smart one, if I may say so.

THE STRANGER: Everything will prosper for you from this day forward. Have no fear.

KELLY: Yes. Good, good. (Pause. Kelly rises and backs towards door. THE STRANGER moving after him menacingly.) If you stay there a moment, I’ll get the Town Clerk back to fix you up formally and give you the lists. He’s having a drink next door.

THE STRANGER: Yes, that would be wise.

KELLY: (Backing out.) I won’t be a moment.

CURTAIN

ACT II

Six weeks have passed.

Scene is the living-room of MRS. MARGARET CROCKETT’S house. The room is comfortable and furnished with taste but is being used as the headquarters of an election campaign and is on that account disarranged. Pinned to the back wall are two posters. One reads VOTE FOR KELLY AND A NEW BROOM. The other NOT FOR PARTY NOR PRIVILEGE BUT FOR COUNTRY AND PEOPLE—KELLY. There is a door, left back, and another (to other parts of house), left front. There is a window, back right corner. On a side table are boxes of envelopes and stationery, a few brass musical instruments and a megaphone. In a corner stands an enormous furled tricolour. There is a fire at side, right. At back is a large two-doored cupboard which, when opened, reveals shelves of delf, tea-things, etc. The latter must be constructed so that the entire inside of it is hinged in a manner that will permit the action detailed towards the end of the play.

A bell rings. HANNAH bustles in left, makes a frenzied attempt to clear up the litter, and then exits right. She is heard talking to someone off stage and in a moment re-enters leading THE STRANGER, who is dressed as before but seems in a somewhat genial mood. It is evident that HANNAH and he are on good terms from previous meetings. THE STRANGER looks over at the election paraphernalia appreciatively.

THE STRANGER: Well, it won’t be long now, Hannah. It won’t be long till we are rewarded for all our work. But we’re going to win. Remember that. (He gives her a playful slap.) We’re going to win! (Puts brief-case on table.)

HANNAH: Do you know, you’re getting worse.

THE STRANGER: Perhaps I am, but it’s the excitement of this election. Rate collecting is a bit dull. We’ll have a great party the night the results come in.

HANNAH: (Still trying to tidy up.) Well, you won’t have it here because you know what herself thinks about drink. It was the drink killed her husband. You can bring a Mills bum and put it on the mantelpiece there, but God help you if you try bringing in a bottle of stout. Are you sure they’re going to make a T.D. out of poor Mr. Kelly?

THE STRANGER: Of course we are. Everybody’s going to vote for Kelly. Wait till you see. They had a great meeting the other night.

HANNAH: What about that necklace you promised me?

THE STRANGER: (Surprised.) What? The necklace? (Recovering quickly.) O, you needn’t think I forgot about it. It’s waiting for you under that cushion. (Points to divan.)

HANNAH: (Not believing him but going to lift the cushion to make sure.) Where—here? O, glory be to God! Glory be to God! (Flabbergasted, she holds up a glistening necklace.)

THE STRANGER: What did I tell you?

HANNAH: O, thank you sir. When did you put it there?

THE STRANGER: (Brushing the thing aside.) Now, now, no questions. Is her ladyship up yet?

HANNAH: She is, or she should be. She had her breakfast in bed an hour ago. (She turns round on THE STRANGER accusingly.) And if she’s not up before now it’s not her fault. She had another late night last night with your friend Mr. Kelly. I declare to God I don’t know what hour of the night or day he left because I went to bed. It’s not respectable, that class of thing. (She pauses to reflect.) It wouldn’t be so bad if they were married, of course. People think nothing of rascality and carry-on if you are married.

THE STRANGER: Now, Hannah, Mr. Kelly left at a respectable hour and always does. I was expecting to see him here this morning. I’ve some extracts from the electoral register here to give him. He has a committee meeting here this morning. (He takes a letter from his pocket.)

HANNAH: There’s nothing but meetings here. (A bell rings.)

THE STRANGER: Ah, here he is now. That’s a real T.D.’s ring.

HANNAH: It’s early in the morning he’s coming back then. (She hurries out, right.) I don’t believe he’s five hours out of this house, but sure it’s no business of mine. (She returns almost at once, excitedly bearing a telegram.)

HANNAH: It’s a telegram for the missus! A telegram! (She pauses in the middle of the stage on her way off, left.) God between us and all harm, I wonder what’s in it.

THE STRANGER: Good news, my dear girl, good news! Don’t be always expecting the worst.

HANNAH: (Going out left.) Well, thank God I never got a telegram.

THE STRANGER: (Regarding poster on wall.) ‘NOR privilege’—’NOR privilege’! That’s wrong. That ‘nor’ should be ‘or.’ ‘Or privilege’ it should be.

(He walks over to the poster and passes his hand over it. Revealed to audience is the same poster but with OR instead of NOR. This can be done by having the ‘N’ printed on a separate slip of paper, lightly fastened to the poster.)

HANNAH: (Re-entering excitedly.) No, no, you needn’t ask me. Her ladyship keeps her good fortune and her hardship to herself. Wouldn’t even open a letter and read it in front of me. Waits till she’s alone.

THE STRANGER: Well, I still think it is good news, Hannah. (He looks at a watch which he takes from his waistcoat.) I think I’d better go away and try to get some money out of the ratepayers, if it can be done at all. (He picks up his brief-case.)

HANNAH: Well, we all have to do a bit of work some time.

THE STRANGER: When Mr. Kelly comes, Hannah, will you give him these lists and tell him I’ll look in and see him tonight. Will you do that for me like a good girl?

HANNAH: (Taking the letter.) He’ll get it safe and sound. (She puts it on the mantelpiece.)

THE STRANGER: Well, goodbye, Hannah.

(Exit.)

(Then KELLY walks in suddenly. HANNAH is tidying around the hearth.)

KELLY: Good morning, Hannah. Is Mrs. Crockett up yet?

HANNAH: That man with the hat was here again this morning, Mr. Kelly. He was looking for you and left a letter. You just missed him.

KELLY: I met him at the door going out. I had a word with him in the porch. None of the others have arrived yet?

HANNAH: No sir. Here’s the letter, sir.

KELLY: Thanks. Thanks, Hannah.

(He sits down wearily and opens the envelope mechanically, showing no interest in the contents.)

KELLY: Mrs. Crockett isn’t up yet?

HANNAH: Yes, sir, she should be here any minute. She just got a telegram.

KELLY: A telegram? Who from?

HANNAH: I don’t know, sir. She didn’t say, sir.

KELLY: I hope it isn’t bad news.

HANNAH: Oh, I’m sure its good news, sir. We mustn’t always be expecting the worst.

KELLY: (Sighing.) True enough, Hannah. True enough.

(There is a ring. HANNAH hurries out left to answer it.)

HANNAH: That’ll be the other gentlemen, sir, for the meeting. The missus should be down any minute, I don’t know under God what’s keeping her.

KELLY: Ah, yes.

(He takes some documents out of the envelope and begins looking over them idly. HANNAH re-enters followed by TOWN CLERK.)

TOWN CLERK: The top of the morning to you, Chairman.

KELLY: (Wearily.) Good morning, Town Clerk. Is Cullen or Kilshaughraun not with you?

TOWN CLERK: No, Chairman, I left word for them to folly me here.

KELLY: (Rousing himself to a brisker posture.) These lists I have here are very promising if Cullen has marked them right. Our enemy Cooper seems to be very weak, on this side of the country anyway. According to these lists, we have about four votes in every five. Now could that be right?

TOWN CLERK: Yerrah, man dear, you’ll have more than that before the dawn of polling day, sure our campaign is only gittin’ steam up. We’ll have to bate the lard out of that Protestant that’s up against you.

KELLY: Ah now, Town Clerk, where is poor old Christian charity? Have we forgotten that altogether in the heat of the campaign? Are the Protestants not Christians also?

TOWN CLERK: Yerrah, that’s all me eye for a yarn, you won’t win any election with that class of talk.

HANNAH: (Who is pretending to be working but who stops every now and then to listen to the talk.) I believe Cromwell was a Protestant.

TOWN CLERK: He was, and a good one.

HANNAH: And look at England that’s full of Protestants.

TOWN CLERK: Ah, that’s a different thing. You’d be a damn fool to be anything but a Protestant in England. There’s a place and a time for everything, girl. What would you expect to find in the say only fish. It comes natural to them in England to be Protestants. But it’s a very unnatural thing in Ireland.

KELLY: Some of my best friends are Protestants.

TOWN CLERK: Hand me over those lists, Chairman, till I run me eye over them. With any more of this class of talk we’ll lose our deposit.

(KELLY hands them over with a wry smile. TOWN CLERK sits on corner of divan.)

KELLY: Well, indeed, it wouldn’t be any harm if Shawn and Tom Cullen hurried up till we get down to our meeting.

TOWN CLERK: (Reading lists.) And the lady of the house, by the same token. (Pause.)

KELLY: (Rises and starts to pace room.) Haven’t we two rallies on Sunday in Tobberglas after the last Mass and Knockaree at two o’clock old time?

TOWN CLERK: Yes, it’s all arranged. We’ve a man from the Waterford Chamber of Commerce to say a few words—it looks well, you know, for an independent business candidate like yerself. An’ we’re having the Patrick Sarsfield Fife and Drum Band for the Knockaree rally—half of the divils in that place go back to bed after their dinners of a Sunday and we’ll have the divil’s work to get them up again for the meeting.

(HANNAH, bored, finishes her show of working and goes out left.)

KELLY: (Meditatively.) Yes. Fair enough. I think I’ll say a few words about the banks. And emigration, that is bidding fair to drain our land of its life blood and spelling ruin to the business life of the community. The flight from the land is another thing that must be arrested at no far distant day. Please God when I get as far as the Dail I will have a word in season to say on that subject to the powers that be. And of course the scandal of the Runny Drainage Scheme is another subject upon which I will make it my particular business to say a few well-chosen words. Other members may sing dumb if they choose. Other members may be gagged by the party Whip. The opportunist and the time-server may not worry about such things. But please God if I win the confidence of the people of this country—if they see fit to entrust me with the task of representing them in the national assembly—I will speak my mind freely and fearlessly.

TOWN CLERK: (Putting down the papers he is studying and looking quizzically at KELLY.) Well, be Gob, if you’d only talk like that when you’re above on the platform, you’d have de Valera standin’ down from the Governmint to make room for you!

KELLY: (Carried away by his own talk.) I’m telling you now, the country is in a very serious position. We must proceed with the utmost caution. Neither Right nor Left will save us but the middle of the road. Rash monetary or economic experiments will only lead us deeper into the mire. What the country requires most is informed and strong leadership and a truce to political wrangling, jobbery and jockeying for position. We have had enough of that—too much of it. Public departments must be ruthlessly pruned. Give me a free hand and I will save you a cool hundred thousand pounds in every one of them. I warrant you that if the people of this country see fit to send me to the Dail, there will be scandals in high places. I happen to know a thing or two. This is not the place or the time to mention certain matters. Suffice it to say that certain things are happening that should not happen. These things are known—to me at least. I can quote chapter and verse. I have it all at my finger-tips and in due time I will drag the whole unsavoury details into the inexorable light of day. No doubt they will seek to silence me with their gold. They will try to purchase my honour.

TOWN CLERK: (Sotto voce, after listening in amazement.) I wish to God somebody would try to buy me.

KELLY: (Bringing his fist again on the table.) Will they succeed? Will success crown their attempts to silence me? Will their gold once again carry the day and make me still another of their bought-and-paid-for minions? By God it won’t! By God in Heaven it won’t!

TOWN CLERK: (Again sotto voce.) Be Gob, I’d sell me soul for half-acrown!

KELLY: (Shouting savagely.) I won’t be bought by gentile or jewman! I won’t be bought! I’m not for sale! Do you hear me, Town Clerk? I’m not for sale! I’M NOT FOR SALE!

TOWN CLERK: (Lifting his head.) Yerrah, Chairman, I’m not tryin’ to buy ye. Sure I didn’t make a bid at all. (There is a ring.) I’m only tryin’ to run me eye through these lists here. Be Gob, there’s some very quare people goin’ to vote for you if Cullen’s marks mean anything. There’s a Fianna Fail T.D. down here.

KELLY: (In a high, excited voice, still pacing and ignoring the TOWN CLERK.) I’m going to break through this thieves’ kitchen . . . this thieves’ kitchen . . . of gombeenery and corruption. I tell you I’m going to make a clean sweep of the whole lot of them, I’ll drag them bag and baggage into the cold light of day. And I won’t be stopped by Knight or Mason. Mark that, Town Clerk. I WON’T BE STOPPED BY KNIGHT OR MASON!

(There is another prolonged ring in the silence that follows this outburst.)

TOWN CLERK: Here’s them two divils Kilshaughraun and Cullen, late and good-lookin’ after wastin’ half the mornin’. And yours too, Chairman.

(HANNAH appears, somewhat flustered, and hurries across the stage to exit, left back. KELLY stops pacing, passes a hand wearily across his brow and subsides again in his chair with a sigh.)

KELLY: Ah, Town Clerk, it’s not an easy world. It’s not an easy world. But please God we will do what we can for Ireland before we die. Please God we will be of some small service to the old land.

TOWN CLERK: Sure I’ve been servin’ Ireland hard since I was born. And what thanks have I got? Me fees for fairs and markets were disallowed be the Minister last year.

(Immediately towards the end of this speech an entirely unexpected figure enters the room, followed by a gaping HANNAH. He is a slim, tall man of about forty, very well and carefully dressed. He wears glasses and a small, carefully tended moustache. He carries himself with the complete and somewhat alien assurance of the gentleman whose training makes him at home in any situation. When he speaks, it is with a comically exaggerated haw-haw English accent. He strides into the room and evinces a very slight well-bred surprise at seeing the TOWN CLERK and KELLY seated so casually in somebody else’s house. The TOWN CLERK’S attitude to the stranger is entirely non-committal but KELLY shows somewhat hostile surprise. HANNAH retreats to the door left, but does not leave the room, being prepared to die rather than miss whatever surprise is forthcoming. The newcomer puts hat, stick and gloves on table near door.)

SHAW: Ao. Good morning. Good morning.

TOWN CLERK: Good morra, sir. That’s a grand spring morning, thank God.

(KELLY rises and stares inquiringly.)

SHAW: O yes, indeed, really marvellous weather. First class, actually. I say, my dear, is Mrs. Crockett about? Would you kindly let her know that Captain Shaw is here?

HANNAH: (Gaping wider.) Yes, sir.

(She is dismissed by his easy imperious manner and goes out left with great reluctance. KELLY continues to stare. The TOWN CLERK feels that his cuteness is challenged and is determined to find out who the stranger is and what is happening.)

TOWN CLERK: But yesterday wasn’t much of a day. Divil a bit of good yesterday ever did the spring wheat.

SHAW: (Blankly.) I beg your pardon?

TOWN CLERK: (Taken somewhat aback.) The weather wasn’t up to the mark yesterday, sir.

SHAW: Nao, the weather in Ireland is rather a bad show. By the way, may I take the liberty of introducing myself? My name is Captain Shaw. I have just arrived from the other side. Had a very rough passage too, by Jove.

TOWN CLERK: I see.

SHAW: Bad show, you know, fearfully trying on the stomach. Frightful business if you don’t happen to be a good sailor.

TOWN CLERK: (Behind divan, rising and extending his hand.) I’m terribly glad to meet you Captain Shaw. I won’t worry you with me own name because I’m only the Town Clerk of this town——

SHAW: Ao!

TOWN CLERK: (Moving left towards fire.) And this gentleman, Captain, is de Chairman. De Chairman of de Council, Captain.

SHAW: Ao. (He bows in a formal courtly way.) Terribly charmed to meet you, I am sure.

KELLY: (Relaxing and perceiving an opportunity for further political ranting.) I am glad to know you, Captain, very glad to have the privilege of your acquaintance. It always gives me pleasure to welcome to Ireland one of our cousins from across the wave.

(TOWN CLERK stands at fire.)

SHAW: Ao, really?

KELLY: I always feel that in every visitor from England we have a unique opportunity to propagate amity and goodwill between the two islands, a chance to undo centuries of distrust and ill-feeling, a God-given opportunity to bring the simple and just claims of our land to the notice of the mighty nation that lives and has its being at the other side of the Irish Sea (he advances)—a chance, if I may make so bold as to say so, to show the English people, without malice or rancour, mark you, what they owe us before the sight of God and how they may pay it to us. In a work, how we may still be friends after seven dark centuries of oppression.

TOWN CLERK: (Impatiently, feeling that KELLY’S address is unsuitable.) Yerrah, Chairman, that’s another story. That’s a different day’s work altogether. (He sits down at fire.)

SHAW: (Somewhat at sea.) Yes, quite right, quite right. Quite right. (He sits down uneasily.)

KELLY: (Warming to his subject again.) And please, Captain, let there be no misunderstanding on this matter. Some people will tell you that I am anti-English—

SHAW: Ao!

KELLY: —that I cherish for the great English nation nothing but venom . . . and scorn . . . and contempt.

SHAW: Ao?

KELLY: What is my answer? My answer is that nothing could be farther from the truth. It is a lie. For the land of England I cherish feelings of the warmest regard. For the people who dwell there, the love and respect that is due to their dignity as human beings, the admiration that is due to those who have worked hard and well in the pursuit of material, if not spiritual, happiness. But what shall I say of the class that is in power in that fair and fertile land?——

SHAW: (At sea.) Ao?

TOWN CLERK: (With mock enthusiasm.) Hear, hear! Hear, hear!

KELLY: (Accepting this as genuine and waxing even more rhetorical.) What shall I say of those who are charged before God with the rule and government of the English nation, not to mention its dominions, dependencies, mandates and colonies beyond the seas? What shall I say of the corrupt, misguided, obtuse and venal time-servers, who have brought, through a travesty of justice and government, shame and dishonour on the British flag? With what scornful word or phrase shall I stigmatise at the bar of history the interventions of successive British Governments in the affairs of my own country—IRELAND, the lamp of civilisation at a time when Europe sat in darkness, cradle of the faith and home of the martyrs. With what pitiless and inexorable terminology will I lash and lash again these debased minions who have presumed to tamper with our historic race, to drive millions of our kith and kin in coffin-ships across the seven seas to dwell in an alien clime with the naked savage, who have destroyed our industries and our crafts and our right to develop our national resources, who have not hesitated to violate the sacred tabernacle of our nation to steal therefrom, defile and destroy our melodious and kingly language—THE IRISH LANGUAGE—our sole badge of nationhood, our only historic link with the giants of our national past—Niall of the Nine Hostages, who penetrated to the Alps in his efforts to spread the Gospel, Kind Cormac of Cashel, Confessor, Saint and lawgiver, heroic St. Laurence O’Toole who is the Patron Saint of Ireland’s greatest city, and Patrick Sarsfield, who rode by night to destroy, no matter at what risk to himself, the hated foreigner’s powder-train at Ballyneety! With what appalling and frightening curse, Captain Shaw, will I invoke the righteous anger of the Almighty against these wicked men who live in gilded palaces in England, cradled in luxury and licentious extravagance, knowing nothing and caring nothing for either the English masses, the historic and indefeasible Irish nation, the naked Negro in distant and distressed India or the New Zealand pigmy on his native shore? With what stern word will I invoke the righteous anger of Almighty God upon their heads, Captain Shaw?

TOWN CLERK: Glory be to God!

SHAW: (Very uneasy.) Really, old man, that’s a bit strong, you know. After all, you know, there are some very nice chaps in London. I wish you would meet some of my friends there. Of course, Ireland got a very poor show at one time, there is no getting away from that, the country was mishandled from the start. No country in the world would be more loyal if they got a good show. The English and the Irish should get together, you know, old man, because they’re nice people—damn nice people.

(Pause. KELLY walks over and shakes the astonished SHAW by the hand.)

KELLY: And nobly said, Captain, I admire a man who will fight his corner. I respect a gallant foe. Please do not think that I am suggesting that all knavery, corruption and governmental incompetence is concentrated in the land of England. Alas, poor old Ireland has her own share of it too. In this country, too, Captain, we have the grossest abuses in high places. We have double-dealing, backstairs influences . . . cliques . . . (he gestures) . . . bad blood between brothers . . . corrupt and debased ruffians in every quarter working to sell the pass. . . .

(He breaks off. MRS. MARGARET CROCKETT has just hurried in from left. She is a coarse, dowdy lady of about 35, somewhat stout and vulgarly dressed. She pauses as she enters, astounded at seeing CAPTAIN SHAW. KELLY stands silent, ignorant of what the position is.)

MARGARET: (To SHAW, excitedly.) What, James? YOU!

(She hurries over to shake hands. He rises with well-bred sang-froid and suddenly becomes somewhat stern.)

SHAW: Hullo, Margaret. How are you?

MARGARET: Very well, James. How are you?

(KELLY begins to come forward.)

SHAW: Quite fit, thank you, Margaret, quite fit. And you’re looking in the pink yourself. I sent you a telegram. Did you not get it?

MARGARET: I only got it this morning a short time ago. I thought you’d be on the seven train in the evening. I could have sent the car if I knew you were coming.

SHAW: Ao.

MARGARET: It’s a great surprise to see you, James. I don’t think we have seen each other since Daddy’s funeral and that’s a long time ago.

SHAW: I believe you’re right, Margaret. And that is quite a time, isn’t it? By the way—(He pauses and glances round at KELLY and the TOWN CLERK.)—by the way, Margaret, I should like to talk to you about something very important.

MARGARET: (Coming between SHAW and KELLY.) Yes. You know these gentlemen? They are friends of mine, very special friends—(Indicating KELLY.) This is the Chairman of the Urban Council in person. And this is his officer, the Town Clerk. (She turns to KELLY and indicates SHAW.) This is my brother, Captain Shaw.

(KELLY and TOWN CLERK are astonished.)

KELLY: Your brother! I didn’t know you had a brother, Margaret. You never told me.

TOWN CLERK: Well, do you know, there’s a family resemblance there all right.

MARGARET: (Smiling.) Well, you know, out of sight, out of mind. I haven’t seen James for nearly eighteen years. James lives in England and has lived there nearly all his life. (She becomes anxious suddenly.) There’s nothing wrong, James, is there? (Sits on divan. KELLY, TOWN CLERK and SHAW sit.)

SHAW: Ao, nao. I just dashed across to have a talk with you, Margaret. A heart-to-heart chat, you know, old girl.

KELLY: Ah, yes. I see. I see.

TOWN CLERK: Ah, sure the family tie is a grand thing.

SHAW: Black Show, all right, breaking up of the home and the scattering of the family and all that. D’you know, I feel quite a foreigner here. And yet I’m Irish, aren’t I?

TOWN CLERK: Yerrah, Captain, wait till you get a drop of the good ould creature into you. That’ll make you feel Irish again, that and a good feed of Cork crubeens.

SHAW: Ao, really?

KELLY: (Rising, with an air of briskness.) Now, Town Clerk, this is no place for us. Family conferences as I understand them must be conducted in strict privacy. Any other person, intimate friend of the family though he be, must in no circumstances intrude or violate that intimate and sacred privacy. Captain Shaw, I hope and pray I will have the pleasure and the privilege of meeting you again before you depart from our midst. (SHAW and MARGARET rise.)

SHAW: (Bowing.) A great pleasure, I am sure, old man.

TOWN CLERK: Well, we’ll skidaddle, me an’ the Chairman. Let ye have ye’r talk here in peace. (He moves to door, left.)

MARGARET: Well, it’s a shame to be pushing you out like this but James doesn’t come to see me everyday.

SHAW: Yes, you chaps, rather black shoe crowding you out, you know, but I want to talk to my sister here about a blighter called Kelly. The old girl hasn’t been behaving very sensibly, I’m afraid. A very bad hat, I’m told.

TOWN CLERK: (Astounded.) Well, glory be to God!

(KELLY has stopped in his track at the door and turned round, gaping.)

MARGARET: James!

KELLY: What?

MARGARET: James! What are you saying? This is Mr. Kelly. (KELLY steps back a few paces into the room.)

MARGARET: (Coming over excitedly between KELLY and SHAW.) James, what on earth do you mean? This is Mr. Kelly.

KELLY: My name is Kelly. (He strikes his breast.) I’m Kelly!

SHAW: Ao, I say, look here——

MARGARET: (Shrilly.) James, what nonsense is this you’re talking? Mr. Kelly is a friend of mine. Has some scandal-giver in this town been writing to you?

TOWN CLERK: Begor, I wouldn’t put it past Reilly.

SHAW: (Stiffening.) Margaret, kindly stand aside. (He approaches KELLY, gently pushing his sister out of the way.) Do I take it that you are the same Kelly who is going forward as an Irish M.P.?

KELLY: (Defiantly.) I have been persuaded by friends that it is my duty to offer them my services as their representative in Doll Erin.

SHAW: Very good. Then we know each other, we know where we are. Allow me to tell you, sir, that you are a cad.

MARGARET: (Distressed.) James!

SHAW: (Ignoring her.) Do you hear me? A cad, a rotter and a bounder!

KELLY: (Angrily.) How dare you talk to me like that! How dare you!

SHAW: I have not finished with you, sir. I have called you a cad. I now call you an unspeakable cur.

KELLY: (Shouting to MARGARET and striding past SHAW to the other side of the stage.) What the devil is this all about? How dare you use language like that to me! Margaret, what is wrong with this man?

SHAW: (Facing sternly to KELLY again.) Kindly leave my sister out of this. You have damaged and destroyed her fair name enough already. If you were a younger man I should invite you to step outside. What your type of person wants is a damn good hiding——

TOWN CLERK: (Coming forward uneasily.) Now for God’s sake we don’t want any fightin’. What we want is explanations. Explanations.

MARGARET: (Retreating and collapsing in despair in armchair near fire.) O, my God!

KELLY: (In a hard, low voice.) You say that your name is Captain Shaw. Very good. I am trying to keep my temper. I demand—and at once—an explanation of your last calumnious and insulting utterance. Otherwise I will have to consider asking the Town Clerk to call a Guard. I will have you given in charge for criminal libel!

MARGARET: (Moaning.) O dear, dear, dear.

SHAW: I’ll tell you very briefly what you are, you cad. My sister, Margaret, does not understand the world. You have destroyed her good name. You have spent whole nights in this house. You have given her the reputation of . . . a jezebel . . . a prostitute. . . .

MARGARET: (Her voice rising to a scream.) James!

SHAW: (Continuing steadily.) You have given her the reputation of a prostitute in her own town, you low bounder. You have extracted money from her. You have made her the tool of your greed for power and position and for that social standing—for that social position—which always seems so attractive to a low country public-house keeper. You have made her the tool of your vulgar and nauseating bid to become an Irish M.P.

KELLY: (Very quietly, and turning away from SHAW.) I ask God to give me the grace to control my temper.

MARGARET: (Rising up angrily and confronting her brother.) James, you ought to be thoroughly ashamed of yourself. How dare you talk about me like that? How dare you say I am an evil woman!

SHAW: I said that this rotter has given you that name in this town.

KELLY: (Exploding.) How dare you! How dare you!

MARGARET: And what do you mean by walking into this room and making wild and base attacks on Mr. Kelly, a gentleman you never saw before in your life? Who told you those lies?

KELLY: What poisonous tongue or pen has been sowing discord and slander and calumny?

SHAW: Have you spent nights in this house up to five and six in the morning? Have you received large sums of money from my sister? Did you cash a cheque of hers for forty pounds last Thursday to pay a printing bill?

TOWN CLERK: Mrs. Crockett is de Treasurer of de Election Committee. We put de election funds into de bank and den de Treasurer writes de cheques.

SHAW: Who the devil are you?

TOWN CLERK: (Sweetly.) A mimber of the gineral public.

MARGARET: (To SHAW.) You have disgraced me and yourself.

SHAW: Now, old girl, you please keep out of this disgusting business. I am here because it is my duty to be here. I am your brother and I am the head of the family——

MARGARET: You have never since I was born—since I was born—done anything but meddle with me—and tell tales on me—and interfere with me. (Her voice rises hysterically.) You tried your best to have my own money bottled up with trustees, you tried——

SHAW: Now, for heaven’s sake don’t make a scene. (The door bell rings.)

KELLY: (Going over to console her.) Now, now, Margaret. Leave this to me. Everything will be all right. (Leads her to armchair at fire.)

SHAW: You get away from that lady! Do you hear me, you cad!

(HANNAH enters, stands flabbergasted for a moment, says ‘Glory be to God!’and exits right to answer door.)

KELLY: (Fiercely.) I’ll take no orders from you, you wretched English bully, you impudent pup.

TOWN CLERK: (To SHAW.) Now, Mr. Shaw, as a bystander, I can tell you that you’re making a holy show and a terrible exhibition of yourself.

SHAW: Who the devil are you?

TOWN CLERK: A member of de general public.

(Voices are heard outside. HANNAH enters looking flustered and followed by CULLEN, KILSHAUGHRAUN and REILLY. KILSHAUGHRAUN with a thick ‘Bail o Dhia annso isteach!’ crosses the stage to an armchair left, throws himself heavily into it, crosses his legs comfortably, grins with good-humour on the stormy scene, and sets about filling his pipe. CULLEN stops in surprise near the door. REILLY, who knows something and does not feel very safe, retreats to the background near the TOWN CLERK and endeavours to be as unobtrusive as possible. HANNAH crosses the stage as if to go off left, but in fact stands near the door listening. There is a few seconds’ silence broken only by the sobbing of MARGARET. SHAW is surveying the newcomers with distaste.)

CULLEN: What’s the matter? What’s up?

KELLY: You may well ask. You may well ask what’s the matter.

SHAW: (To CULLEN.) Who are you?

TOWN CLERK: (Sweetly.) He’s a mimber of the gineral public.

SHAW: This place is like a railway station. Margaret, what is the meaning of this? Have you no sense of shame?

KELLY: Shut up, you bosthoon!

MARGARET: (Hysterically.) How dare you speak to me like that! (She struggles to her feet and faces SHAW.) How dare you tell me what to do in my own house, and who to ask into it!

KELLY: Hear, hear.

SHAW: Don’t be so damned theatrical, Margaret.

MARGARET: But I know who to have in this house and who not to have. I know who to order out! Get out—you! Yes, you! You! Do you hear me? (Her voice rises to a scream.) Get out! Get out! (She breaks down and rushes over to HANNAH.) O, Hannah!

(Pause. HANNAH takes her and leads her out left. There is a long awkward pause.)

CULLEN: What in the name of God is going on here?

TOWN CLERK: We’ve all met with misfortune. A fair man has come to us from across the sea. With very bad news.

KELLY: This whippersnapper, believe it or not, is a brother of Margaret’s.

SHAW: I haven’t finished with you yet, Kelly. Impertinent language won’t help you.

KELLY: And I haven’t finished with you. Indeed I haven’t started yet. You will not be the first pup in this town that I put in his box.

SHAW: (Looking at KILSHAUGHRAUN, who is puffing contentedly in the armchair.) I happen to be a brother of the lady who owns this house—

KELLY: And who ordered you to clear out of it a moment ago.

SHAW: I happen to be a brother of the householder. My name is Shaw. May I ask who you are?

SHAWN: (Smiling genially.) Me, avic? (He rises.) Ah, isn’t it a terrible thing to hear anybody in Ireland asking who Shawn Kilshaughraun is? Mr. Shaw. (He takes SHAW by the hand, catching the arm by the elbow at the same time with his other hand.) Mr. Shaw, you are shaking hands with Shawn Kilshaughraun, an humble . . . hard-working . . . good-hearted . . . mimber of the historic Irish nation.

SHAW: (Taken aback and shaking his hand free.) Glad to meet you, I am sure.

TOWN CLERK: (‘Introducing’ CULLEN.) This is another mimber of the gineral public like meself. (He turns to REILLY, who is skulking in the background.) And this is Mr. Reilly.

SHAW: Hullo, Reilly. What on earth brings you here?

REILLY: (Coming forward defiantly.) I just dropped in to tell the Chairman that there’s an inspector from the Department in the town. He’s above in the hotel and he’s down to smell out the ready-up about the rate collector or my name isn’t Reilly.

TOWN CLERK: Begob, Chairman, if there’s an Inspictor in the town, my place is me office. (He grabs his hat.) My place is me office. I’ll see yez all later. You too, Mr. Bernard Shaw! (He hurries out.)

KELLY: (Sneering.) Huh! I notice that you’re already acquainted with this distinguished visitor. By God, I see it all now. I know who my detractor and persecutor is.

CULLEN: Won’t somebody tell me what’s going on in this house? What’s the trouble, Mr. Shaw?

KELLY: The man’s out of his mind, Tom.

SHAW: This man Kelly, if you must know, is a low swine who has destroyed my sister’s good name and robbed her.

CULLEN: What?

KELLY: You heard that, Tom?

CULLEN: (To SHAW.) You must be off your head, man.

KELLY: You heard that, Tom? Make a good note of it. Mark it and note it well because your testimony on it will be required at another place and at another time.

CULLEN: (Amazed, to SHAW.) But surely, man, you’re not serious? Sure if the Chairman wants to court your sister, hasn’t he every right to?

SHAW: If you don’t mind, I’ll be the judge of any matter affecting the honour of my family and the right of my sister to regulate her own life. (Sneering.) And her bank balance, too.

CULLEN: My God, you must be crazy!

KELLY: Listen, Tom, pay no attention. The man glories in calumny and detraction. I ask you, Tom, to make a note of everything that is said here. Not forgetting the part played by our mutual friend,

Mr. Reilly.

CULLEN: What has he been doing? What’s this about, Martin?

REILLY: (Coming forward and standing near SHAW, facing KELLY.) Do I have to ask leave from you to attend to me own private affairs? I don’t give a snap of me fingers for you or any other twister. And you won’t get away with your ready-up about the rate collector and don’t think it.

KELLY: (Throwing out his hands and turning his eyes to heaven.) Ah, this poor man, this poor misguided man!

SHAW: Sanctimonious nonsense of that kind will avail you nothing. I’m going to smash you up in this town, you rotter!

CULLEN: (Horrified, crossing the stage to the left, where KELLY and SHAWN are, leaving SHAW and REILLY together on right.) Listen, Shawn, can’t we do something in the name of God about this? This is awful and a reflection on the whole lot of us.

SHAWN: (Puffing happily.) I do, I do, I do. ‘Tis reminiscent of me own stormy . . . hard . . . advinturous election days when Shawn Kilshaughraun stood out alone against the besht brains in the country. Sure, ‘tis many a row the Chairman will have before he reaches the free Parliament of the Irish people.

SHAW: (To SHAWN.) Many a row after he reaches there? I’ll see that he’s kicked out at this election even if I have to go up against him myself.

REILLY: (Astonished.) Go up yourself?

SHAW: (Staring at REILLY. There is a pause.) And perhaps it’s not a bad idea at that. Perhaps it’s not a bad idea at that! Why shouldn’t I go up against him? WHY SHOULDN’T I?

REILLY: Are you gone crazy, man?

CULLEN: (Flabbergasted.) You go up? You a T.D.?

KELLY: (To SHAWN.) I told you the man wasn’t right in the head. I told you.

SHAW: (Pleased with himself, looking to each of them in turn.) Why shouldn’t I go up? I’m Irish, aren’t I? I’m Irish. I have the money. Why shouldn’t I go up and expose and defeat this rotter on his own ground? What do you say, Mr. Reilly?

REILLY: (Puzzled.) Well, begob, Mr. Shaw, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to say. (He scratches his head in perplexity.) Begob, maybe you wouldn’t be the last man in the world to be appointed.

SHAW: (Pleased.) D’you know, I think I will go up. I think I will go up.

SHAWN: Begob now, three candidates would make it a grand . . . fine . . . heart-rending . . . pulsating election fight. (He rubs his hands gleefully.)

SHAW: (Beginning to pace and think.) Yes. Quite. Quite . . .

REILLY: Begob, if you’re not coddin’ about going up you’ll have to look snappy. You haven’t much time left. You’ll have to get your committee goin’ and get good substantial men to nominate you, and get posters printed. And all that takes money—bags of money. Could you put your hands in you pocket for a thousand pounds?

SHAW: (Still thinking.) I have the funds, old boy, I have the funds.

SHAWN: Yerrah, sure Mr. Shaw has the stuff. I’d know that to take wan look at him.

KELLY: Lord save us, the next thing you’ll see me doing is laughing. LAUGHING! (He gives a long forced hollow guffaw.) The idea of it! The idea of it!

SHAWN: Yerrah, boy, if he wants to go up isn’t he entitled.

KELLY: (Half to himself.) The idea of it! The idea! And something tells me that if this lunatic goes up, it certainly won’t do me any harm. Listen, Shawn . . .

(He goes over and begins to converse sotto voce with SHAWN. The only audible portion of the latter’s replies is the phrase ‘I do, I do.’)

REILLY: (Rubbing his hands together.) Begob, do you know, Mr. Shaw, I think you’re the man we’re all looking for. I think you’d be a good match for all the political rogues we have in this bloody country. I think you’d know how to down-face the bastards and clean up all this dirty jobbery and back-door stuff.

SHAW: I’m Irish, anyhow—born within two miles of this town.

REILLY: (To SHAW, confidentially.) Listen here, Mr. Shaw. You say you’re Irish and that you come from this part of the country. Well, you speak like a man that spent a long time across the water. Tell me this. Maybe you changed your colours like a lot more when you were over there. The people here wouldn’t like that at all. Are you an R.C. still or did you learn to dig with the wrong foot?

SHAW: Don’t be an ass, old man. I was born a Roman Catholic, and please God when I am called I will still be a Roman Catholic.

REILLY: (Loudly and jubilantly.) Ah, well, that’s all right. If you’re an R.C., that’s all right. That’s grand. Grand.

CULLEN: Are you seriously going up or is all this a joke?

REILLY: Of course he’s going up.

SHAW: I haven’t the pleasure of your acquaintance nor do I know your name, sir, but I may——

REILLY: Cullen. His name is Cullen. Tom Cullen and he’s not the worst.

SHAW: Ao. Mr. Cullen? (Bowing.) Glad to meet you, I am sure. I may tell you this much, Mr. Cullen. I am going up for election. Even if I never took my seat and never attended a single meeting of the Irish House of Commons in Dublin, I would still be doing the people of this country a great service. Do you know why?

REILLY: Why?

SHAW: Because by presenting myself for the election I would be saving them from that ruffian (his voice rises and he points at KELLY) —that impostor of a publican. No matter how it is done or what it costs me, I will save the people from that gentleman.

REILLY: (Cynically.) Good man yourself. Well spoken!

(KELLY has begun to glare at SHAW angrily and now walks over to confront him.)

SHAWN: The blood is up. The election blood is up. I do, I do. (Pause.)

KELLY: God in His mercy has so far given me the grace to keep my temper and I do not intend to lose it now. The golden virtue of control—control of self—is a thing I have always endeavoured to practise. I intend to persevere in that. I will not let a person of your type deflect me from that purpose. But this much I will say. This much I will permit myself. In a lifetime extending over a period close on fifty years I have never had the misfortune to encounter a person who is a greater pup, a greater bags, than yourself. You have the effrontery to talk of your sister’s money. Not one penny of that have I ever touched. Not one penny of it could I ever bear to touch. WHAT YOU SAY IS A DAMNED LIE!

SHAW: It is the truth, you rotter, and you know it!

KELLY: But what is more important is why you are so interested in your sister’s money. What is more important is why you are afraid your sister should get married.

SHAW: (Sneering.) Really? Really?

KELLY: (Fiercely.) PERHAPS THAT IS WHY YOU LET LOOSE ON ME IN THIS ROOM THE MOST VILE FLOOD OF CALUMNY . . . AND SLANDER . . . AND FOUL LANGUAGE IT HAS EVER BEEN MY MISFORTUNE TO LISTEN TO!

(SHAW glares at KELLY, then rushes over for his hat and stick and makes for the door, where he delivers a parting shot.)

KELLY: And that is about the size and shape of it and please contradict me if I am wrong, Mr. Kilshaughraun.

SHAW: (At the door, after taking up hat, stick and gloves.) If it’s the last thing I do in this world, I’ll break you into little pieces, so help me—I’ll run you out of this house and out of this country, you objectionable little pig of a publican. I’ll destroy you, do you hear? And I’ll make sure of one thing. You’ll never be an Irish M.P. YOU’LL NEVER BE AN IRISH M.P. YOU——*

CURTAIN QUICKLY

---

* Insert appropriate local term of abuse.

ACT III

Four weeks later.

The scene is the same save that the room is in a far more advanced state of disorder with posters, stationery, banners, flags and all manner of electioneering paraphernalia. A clock shows that it is about nine in the evening. The curtains are drawn.

MARGARET is sitting disconsolately alone on the sofa, which is facing the audience towards the left of the stage. KELLY is listening on the phone, bending over a small table towards the right. There is complete silence for a few seconds after the curtain goes up.

KELLY: What? What?

(MARGARET sighs and passes her hand wearily across her brow.)

KELLY: (Eagerly.) Yes. Yes, yes! Good, good. Excellent. Yes? (He pauses to listen.)

MARGARET: What does he say?

KELLY: (Holding up his hand to silence her.) Are you sure of that?

WHAT? (He listens.) Good! Ring me up later. I SAID RING ME UP LATER! Goodbye!

(He bangs down the phone and turns to MARGARET, gleefully rubbing his hands.)

KELLY: Margaret, Margaret, I’m nearly home and dried. I’m nearly home and dried! (He flops down on the sofa beside her and takes her hand.) I’m nearly home, Margaret.

MARGARET: (Dejectedly.) That’s good news.

KELLY: (Trying to cheer her up.) O, now listen, woman, CHEER UP! (He takes her hand again and looks at her entreatingly.) Are you not glad I’m winning? Come on, now! Are you? Honest?

MARGARET: (Looking up.) I am, I am glad. But I’m worried. I was thinking about things. I was talking to Father Healy today.

KELLY: (Impatiently.) Now for God’s sake you’re not going to start again about this business of being a nun? You’re not going to be a nun and that’s all about it. You’re going to marry me. You’re not going into any convent, Margaret. I WON’T HAVE IT!

MARGARET: Turning on him suspiciously.) I believe you have drink taken again today.

KELLY: (Shocked.) Margaret! Me? How can you say a thing like that?

MARGARET: Well, you had a drink taken last night, and so had that Town Clerk.

KELLY: (Soothingly.) Listen, Margaret, you’re a little bit unnerved by the worry of this election and I don’t blame you. You know in your heart I never touch it, Margaret. Don’t you believe me, Margaret?

MARGARET: (Putting her hand wearily to her head.) O, I don’t know. I’m very worried. God forgive me for quarrelling with James. He has made a fool of himself at the elections. And I’m to blame for that. I was talking to Father Healy about people with late vocations. I’m sorry I didn’t do what I wanted to do years ago. I’m honestly thinking of going away. Away from all this bitterness and fighting. Nearly everybody in the town was drunk when they were voting. Father Healy was telling me all about it. Drink, drink, drink.

KELLY: Listen, Margaret, don’t be talking like that. Public life is by no means perfect but please God we will change what is bad and shameful in it. And I said we, Margaret. You and I. Together we can strike a blow for the old land. Together we can do our small part to right the wrongs that have come down through seven centuries of alien domination and godless misrule. What do you say, Margaret?

MARGARET: (Deflating him.) I can’t get it out of my head that you take drink.

KELLY: Margaret!

MARGARET: Drink is what killed my husband.

KELLY: (Earnestly.) I tell you, Margaret, I never touch it. I never touch it. (He pauses and bursts out.) My God, Margaret, why do you keep on saying that?

MARGARET: (Sadly, in a preoccupied way.) Drink is what killed my husband. And my father. I would never marry a man that took drink. Never!

KELLY: (Going over solicitously and sitting down beside her again.) Listen to me, now, Margaret. We won’t go into the poor weak souls who were tortured and destroyed in the past by indulgence in bacchanalian vice. It is a branch of the national character which we must reform—

MARGARET: And why must you go back to the past? Look at this town today. Look at that Town Clerk. He’s the cheekiest little man in this town and he’s always half drunk. He is always full of stout.

KELLY: (Impatiently.) I know, Margaret, I know, but can we never talk of anything else? Listen, girl, I’m nearly certain to be elected. When I am and when I have taken my seat in the parliament of Ireland, can’t the two of us get married and go up and live above in Dublin!

MARGARET: (Still despondent.) O, I don’t know what to say. But I don’t know what I should do. I always wanted to enter religion. I don’t like a lot of things I see in the world around me——

KELLY: What things?

MARGARET: O, a lot of things. Everything. I don’t like the way people behave. It’s not Christian. Look at the terrible things James, my own brother, said about you last Sunday. People are laughing at me—I know they are. I feel I am to blame for a lot of the trouble. And you are to blame too. We’re all to blame. How could James say what he said on Sunday if he was a proper Christian?

KELLY: (Indulgently.) Ah, Margaret, it’s all poor old human nature. Poor sinful broken-down human nature. Bad as it is at the best of times, it goes to hell altogether when there’s an election in the air.

MARGARET: And how could you talk the way you did a moment ago about drink when you own a public-house yourself?

KELLY: (Shocked and hurt.) Margaret, that isn’t true. That isn’t true at all. I don’t own a public-house. It’s only an off-licence.

MARGARET: I don’t care what it’s called.

KELLY: (Emphatically.) And it’s only a six-day licence.

MARGARET: Hannah was saying that she sees a lot of people going into your shop after the last Mass on Sunday, even though you’re closed.

KELLY: Ah, they would be the language workers—the Gaelic League. I give them a room free of charge for their classes, you know. I do what I can to encourage the old tongue.

MARGARET: But surely people wouldn’t be learning Irish at that hour on a Sunday. I always thought it’s at night people learn Irish.

KELLY: Yes, yes, Margaret, but there is such a thing as a committee meeting, there is such a thing as a committee of ways and means. The real spade work has to be done behind closed door. O, well I know it—many’s a committee I served on.

MARGARET: (Fiercely.) O, I don’t care.

KELLY: (Impatiently.) Listen, Margaret. (He takes her hand ingratiatingly.) One simple question now. The same one I asked before. Margaret, will you marry me? Yes or no? After I get my seat, of course. Will you marry me? Will you?

(The telephone rings violently. KELLY, startled, jumps up and without a word takes up the receiver; just when he has begun listening he remembers to say ‘Excuse me’ to MARGARET, who looks very disconcerted by his abrupt departure from her.)

KELLY: (Excitedly.) Hullo? Yes? Yes. What? (There is a long pause.) WHAT? Yes. YES. I AM? Are you certain? Good! Great! GREAT! Thanks, thanks, thanks.

(He bangs down the receiver and rushes exuberantly about the room, rubbing his hands gleefully; he is beside himself with delight.)

KELLY: I’m home, Margaret. I’m home and dried. The votes aren’t all counted but he can’t beat me now no matter what happens! Cooper’s second and your brother’s last! Master James is beaten, beaten to the ropes. HE’S BEATEN! And I’m in—I’m elected. I’m in!

MARGARET: (Rising.) Are you sure?

KELLY: Certain. CERTAIN! Sure I just got it on the wire.

(The front door bell rings.)

MARGARET: O, I don’t know what to say to you! I’m glad.

(She rushes over to him impetuously; he catches her in a sort of halfembrace but this is broken almost instantly as HANNAH bustles in from left to answer the door bell. She exits left back, taking no notice of KELLY and MARGARET. Almost at once, the confused, thick babel of SHAWN KILSHAUGHRAUN and the TOWN CLERK is heard from without. In a second they march in, SHAWN leading the way. The TOWN CLERK is threequarters drunk but has long experience in disguising the fact. SHAWN is not the type that can be changed by drink and for all anybody knows may be completely drunk. His hand is already outstretched on the way in preparation for a handclasp of congratulation. MARGARET has begun to retreat again from KELLY and sits down again on the sofa.)

KELLY: (Beaming.) Well, well, well.

TOWN CLERK: (Only half in through door.) Good evenin’, one and all. And good evenin’ yourself, Mrs. Crockett.

SHAWN: Ah, Chairman, Chairman, may you long live to wear the great, grand, fine honour that has been saddled on you this day by the people of this grand old historic country. May you live for long, long years to enjoy—and re-enjoy—every bit of it—every little bitteen of it, avic.

TOWN CLERK: (Coming forward to take KELLY’S hand away from SHAWN.) Congratulations, Chairman. Begob, you’re the right boyo. Sure I always knew you were a potential T.D.—you were threatened with it since the cradle, man.

KELLY: (Genially.) Thank you, gentlemen, thank you. Thank you very much.

TOWN CLERK: Yerrah, not at all.

KELLY: This much I will say. Never has a public man been the fortunate recipient of more whole-hearted co-operation and assistance from true friends than I was on the occasion of this great election. (He turns to MARGARET.) Margaret, I owe more than I can ever repay to these two gentlemen——

SHAWN: (Grinning broadly.) I do, I do.

(He makes his way heavily to the armchair near fire and sits. KELLY runs over again to MARGARET and sits down beside her solicitously.)

KELLY: Margaret, these are the two best friends I have. Both of us should be grateful to them.

MARGARET: Yes, I know. They worked very hard.

TOWN CLERK: Yerrah now, don’t be talkin’ to me, shure it’s only part of the day’s work. ‘Tisn’t worth a fiddler’s curse.

MARGARET: And what about your other friend? The man that wears the bowler hat. The rate collector.

KELLY: (Not so pleased.) O, him?

SHAWN: I do, I do. Shure he worked like a steam-injun and he got hundreds of pounds from nowhere, wherever the devil he collected it.

KELLY: Yes. He also showed himself a good friend.

TOWN CLERK: (Sotto voce.) An’ why wouldn’t he, after been lurried into a job.

(SHAWN has genially lowered himself into a chair and begun the long operation of preparing his pipe. The TOWN CLERK wanders to a backward position where he is not visible to the two on the sofa, takes a halfpint from his hip pocket and takes an enormous slug.)

SHAWN: I do, I do. I congratulate you again, Chairman, but may the Lord comfort you and give you strength to bear the sad . . . terrible . . . mortifying . . . excruciating . . . fierce . . . trials and tribulations that you will meet with above in the Dail. Shure ‘tis like goin’ to bed with ten crocodiles—and without your boots on you itself.

KELLY: (Smiling.) Ah, well, please God we will try, Shawn——

(At this point the TOWN CLERK has taken his enormous slug of whiskey and gives an involuntary gasp or grunt that is clearly heard.)

KELLY: (Turning in surprise.) What——?

TOWN CLERK: (Covering up hastily.) I was only clearin’ me throat, Chairman. These cigarettes has me destroyed.

(MARGARET wheels round and gets up, outraged by this noise. She moves back right, colossally irritated. KELLY shows concern.)

KELLY: What’s the matter, Margaret?

MARGARET: O, nothing. Nothing at all.

SHAWN: Shure aren’t we all worn away with the excitement of this wild . . . mad . . . ferocious . . . exciting day.

MARGARET: (Testily, facing them all generally.) I think it’s yourselves you’re all thinking about all the time, not other people. You don’t care what happens as long as you get your own way——

KELLY: Margaret, what’s the matter?

MARGARET: It’s true. You’re like three peacocks here, only that one of the peacocks has drink taken.

TOWN CLERK: (Who has become a bit hilarious after the last slug.) That’s a bit of a crack at you, Chairman.

KELLY: (Very seriously.) Margaret, please——

MARGARET: All the talk about Ireland and the fine promises we heard for the last month are forgotten now. And all the hard un-Christian things that were said—it doesn’t matter about them, we’re all very nice and happy and good-humoured now because we’ve won.

KELLY: (Quietly.) Margaret, are you not being a little bit unfair? It is perhaps true that in politics there is much that is unpleasant. But speaking for myself (his voice rises as he unconsciously climbs into his plane of ranting) speaking for myself, this much I will say. As an accredited deputy in the national parliament I am determined to serve my country according to my lights and to the utmost of the talents which God has given me. I am determined to strike blow after blow against the vested interest. I am determined to break—to smash—backstairs jobbery in high places. I am determined to expose—to drag into the inexorable light of day—every knave, time-server, sycophant and party camp-follower. I will meet them all and fight them. I will declare war on the Masons and the Knights. I will challenge the cheat and the money-changer——

MARGARET: (In a loud, shrill, half-hysterical voice.) O, stop it. STOP IT! (She begins to move restlessly about the room.) I am sick—absolutely sick—of that sort of talk. I have listened to nothing else for a whole month. I simple won’t stand for any more of that. (She turns on KELLY fiercely.) Do you hear me, I won’t stand it! (She sits on divan.)

SHAWN: Yerrah shure we’re all very tired.

KELLY: (Going and sitting down beside her once again.) Listen, child, you’re very tired. I think we should all leave you and let you get to bed.

(The TOWN CLERK, getting the pair seated again, retires to the background, produces the bottle and takes an even greater slug than the previous one. He gives another loud gasp. KELLY turns and gives him a long cold stare, realises what has happened and looks back again to MARGARET.)

SHAWN: (Rising, with many affectionate pats and adjustments at his clothes.) I do, I do. ‘Tis time and more than time for all those who have laboured for the grand cause to steal away (he tones his thick voice down to a level that is meant to be dainty) quietly into the sweetness of the night and to take a few sweet hours of soft salubrious sleep. What do you say, Town Clerk?

(KELLY is talking inaudibly to MARGARET. At this point the door bell rings. It is a most unusual ring—sustained for ten or fifteen seconds as if the ringer suddenly dropped asleep with his finger on the bell. Just as it stops HANNAH rushes in at great haste. As she exits right to answer the ring, the bell peals again and apparently is stopped only by the door being opened meanwhile.)

TOWN CLERK: Who in the name of God would this be now? Has he no shame to be calling to a private house at such an hour? Or would it be a Guard on duty?

MARGARET: (Wearily.) O, I suppose it’s more of these election people.

KELLY: Well, dear knows it is no supporter of mine and if it is he will march straight out again.

(He is interrupted as HANNAH rushes in, very frightened and casting apprehensive glances behind her. In a second or two the reason for her alarm appears. It is CAPTAIN SHAW. He pauses absolutely still on the threshold. His clothes look somewhat bedraggled and his face bears an extraordinarily tense expression. All present are astonished and at the same time tense that something unusual has happened. They gape at SHAW, and MARGARET rises to her feet in consternation.)

MARGARET: (Rising, as does KELLY also.) Jim! What’s the matter? (She takes a step forward.) What’s the matter, Jim?

KELLY: It’s our friend back again.

MARGARET: (Her voice rising somewhat hysterically.) Jim! What’s wrong with you?

TOWN CLERK: (Who senses what is the matter from his own extensive experience and rushes forward to support SHAW.) Yerrah, sure the poor unfortunate man has been consolin’ himself. And why wouldn’t he!

(SHAW is still standing wild-eyed at the door. MARGARET takes another step forward and stares at him as if unable to believe the suggestion made by the TOWN CLERK.)

SHAWN: (Softly.) I do, I do. He is happy in himself at last, God bless him.

MARGARET: (Almost screaming.) Jim! Have you been drinking?

KELLY: (Very quietly.) Sure the unfortunate man is stuffed with whiskey.

(Here SHAW moves or falls forward into the room. He is in the last blithering stages of intoxication and the nature of his movements and attempts at talking is more a matter for playing rather than for writing in the present script; only the outline of his remarks is attempted here. He staggers over towards SHAWN and attempts to hold out his hand as if to confer congratulations.)

MARGARET: (Beside herself.) Jim!

SHAW: No hard feelings, old boy.

SHAWN: (Genially.) Ah, yerrah, the poor man!

SHAW: No hard feelings, old boy. No hard feelings.

MARGARET: (Rushing over and confronting SHAW.) Jim, you’ve been drinking! You’ve been drinking! You, that never touched drink in your life!

SHAW: H’llo Margaret. (He peers at SHAWN.) You’re not Mr. Kelly.

KELLY: I’m Kelly.

TOWN CLERK: (Almost simultaneously.) This is the elected representative of the people, Mr. Kelly, T.D.

SHAW: (Blinking round vaguely.) No hard feelings, old boy. (He distinguishes KELLY and turns round to him.) I’m a sportsman. Always believe in shaking hands with the man that licks me. (He tries to hold out his hand.) Besht man won, old boy. No hard feelings at all.

(He falls on divan. TOWN CLERK and SHAWN sit beside him.)

KELLY: This unfortunate man ought to be in bed because damn the other place he’s fit to be in——

(At this point MARGARET becomes really hysterical. The sight of her brother in this condition brings all her loathing for drink to a terrific climax. She rounds on KELLY.)

MARGARET: Look what you’ve done now! Look what you’ve done now! (Then she looks in turn to SHAWN and the TOWN CLERK.) Do you see the result of your handiwork? (She points at SHAW.) Look at him! Look at him. I hope you’re satisfied. That’s all I have to say. I hope you’re satisfied.

KELLY: Margaret, for heaven’s sake don’t be talking like that!

MARGARET: Why wouldn’t I talk like that? You’re worse than any of them. You’re responsible for this.

KELLY: Me?

MARGARET: You! It’s you that drove my brother to do this—to put himself on the same level as a brute beast—a man that lived for forty-five years in this world without knowing what the taste of drink was. (Her voice rises even higher.) You’re to blame for this. Do you hear me? You’re the cause of it and you’ll have to answer for it before God.

KELLY: I’m to blame? How in the name of heaven am I to blame?

SHAW: Let’s all be friends.

MARGARET: He’s beside himself with drink. He must have been at it for hours.

KELLY: How can you say that I’m to blame if a grown man chooses to make a beast of himself?

SHAWN: We’re all sportsmen here. All good sports.

MARGARET: It’s you . . . and this wretched election . . . and all these lies and slanders. The whole lot of you are to blame, and me too. Do you hear that? Including me.

TOWN CLERK: Yerrah, not at all.

KELLY: You poor girl, you’re overwrought. (He puts his hand on her arm but she shakes it off.) You’re not yourself, Margaret.

MARGARET: Leave me alone!

SHAWN: Do you know, old boy, I was never in better form.

MARGARET: (Pointing at SHAW.) Just look at him. Babbling like a child, bereft of every vestige of his God-given senses. O my God this is terrible!

TOWN CLERK: Yerrah, sure the man is only jarred.

KELLY: Margaret, we’ll go home.

MARGARET: I’m finished with you all—for ever. FOR EVER, do you hear me? You talk about Christian charity . . . and decency . . . and reforming all the nasty things one sees today in this country. What are you, the whole lot of you, but vulgar despicable hypocrites, a gang of drunken louts, worrying all day and all night about your own delicate hides! I’m sick of you . . . absolutely sick. . . .

(Exit.)

SHAWN: (With great compassion.) Ah, the poor overworked . . . tired . . . good . . . religious-minded girl. (He looks towards SHAW.) And the poor . . . tired . . . worn-out . . . exstotiated brother.

(THE STRANGER has entered unobserved.)

KELLY: (Pathetically broken, going to window.) Ah, dear help us. Dear save us and help us. She’s going to leave me.

TOWN CLERK: She is, faith. (He notices THE STRANGER and turns to him.) Begob, yourself with your hat on! Where the divil did you drop from? (They all turn in surprise to see THE STRANGER.)

THE STRANGER: Good night, gentlemen. (He advances towards KELLY.) And congratulations to you, Mr. Kelly.

(He takes KELLY affectionately by the arm, and walks him away from the others, talking to him in an undertone. He pauses on one occasion to point to the prostrate form of SHAW. KELLY looks disturbed and frightened. He makes a few half-hearted efforts to shake off the linking arm, and replies in undertones. Meanwhile . . .)

SHAWN: (Giving the vastest and noisiest yawn ever yet attempted by a human being.) Well, do you know, nivver in his life was Shawn Kilshaughraun so exhausted and worn out . . . and emaciated with exertions . . . and strenualities.

TOWN CLERK: Yerrah, don’t be talking to me.

(At this point KELLY savagely wrenches his arm free from THE STRANGER and backs away from him and speaks in a loud frightened tone.)

KELLY: I will not, I will not! I’m not a T.D. I haven’t taken the oath or taken my seat yet. That’s not the bargain!

THE STRANGER: (Soothingly, ingratiatingly.) Of course, of course, Mr. Kelly. That’s quite all right. There is no hurry at all. (He turns to the others.) A little private matter we were discussing. It will be quite time enough at the next session, in two months’ time.

TOWN CLERK: (To THE STRANGER, severely.) Have you no sense of fitness, man, to be talking business to the Chairman in the hour of his triumph. Shure if you’d any sense, you’d be out swallying balls of malt like the rest of us.

THE STRANGER: I am sorry if I intrude. (He sits beside SHAW on divan. The bell rings.)

KELLY: (Still very agitated.) Town Clerk, private word in your ear. (To the others.) Excuse me.

(TOWN CLERK crosses to KELLY at window. They whisper briefly as SHAWN says:)

SHAWN: Do you know, Rate Collector, we owe the half of our glorious triumph to your good self.

(The door bell has rung and HANNAH hurries in to answer it. She pauses in surprise when she sees those present.)

HANNAH: Glory be to God, are yez still here! Yez have the mistress in a right state upstairs, whatever yez were doing to her. (She hurries out right.)

THE STRANGER: (To SHAWN.) Well, I think we all did our best. You did a fine day’s work yourself, Mr. Kilshaughraun.

SHAWN: (Deprecatingly.) Ah, yerrah, no.

(HANNAH returns, leading the way disdainfully for REILLY; she goes out immediately to left, after giving all a contemptuous look and giving a long stare at the prostrate form of SHAW on the sofa. KELLY has now separated from TOWN CLERK. REILLY has a satisfied sneer on his face.)

REILLY: (Gloatingly.) Good night, one and all. I have just had a nice bit of news.

TOWN CLERK: Begob, it must be very bad news if you have it.

REILLY: O, it’s nothing much. Only that the Town Clerk got a letter from the Minister this morning. (His tone hardens.) The ready-up is knocked on the head. The wangle won’t work. Do you know why?

TOWN CLERK: (Surprised and serious.) How the divil do you know what’s in the private letters I get in me office?

REILLY: (Triumphantly.) Do you know why? Because our friend there (jerking his thumb at THE STRANGER) won’t be sanctioned. HE WON’T BE SANCTIONED!

KELLY: (Almost brightly.) If the appointment is not in order for one reason or another, Mr. Reilly, I am as anxious as anybody that it should be terminated.

TOWN CLERK: Begob, to tell the truth it’s an appointment I was nivver happy about.

SHAWN: (Coming forward.) Well, do you know, I guessed this would come to pass because the Department is one of the most . . . complicated . . . yokes in the whole . . . civilised world.

REILLY: There’s goin’ to be a right row, maybe a sworn inquiry. Just wait and see.

KELLY: (Sharply.) You can spare us all your bad tongue, Mr. Reilly. Our Council was always honest and above-board but we can make mistakes like everybody else. I am as anxious as the next man to rectify any mistake that was made in the past.

REILLY: There’s goin’ to be hell to pay over the query form. (He nods towards THE STRANGER.) Your man’s replies to the queries was all lies. The Department’s Inspector checked them. All lies from the word go. And very serious lies some of them were. The Guards are on the job now, I believe.

THE STRANGER: (Getting up from the sofa and coming forward.) What’s the trouble?

KELLY: (Bravely.) I’m afraid you’re the trouble.

THE STRANGER: (Puzzled.) How do you mean?

REILLY: (Almost losing his temper.) Begob, you’ll find out all about it very soon, me bucko. You were wheeled in on the ratepayers’ backs by a bare-faced twist and by your own pack of dirty lies on the query form. YOU WON’T BE SANCTIONED. Do you hear that? You won’t be sanctioned, and you might get a stretch in jail for yourself free of charge, into the bargain.

TOWN CLERK: This ould crow is right. You won’t be sanctioned.

THE STRANGER: (Puzzled.) I don’t desire to retain this post very long. Mr. Kelly and I have an arrangement.

KELLY: O, I’m afraid you’re out of it even now. If you’re turned down by the Department, that’s the end of it. If the Council keeps you on, they leave themselves open to surcharge and perhaps a sworn injury. And that’s a very serious matter.

THE STRANGER: (Somewhat perturbed.) I don’t see any reason why I cannot stay on for a little time until I get another job. I’m entitled to some notice. You can get me another job, Mr. Kelly, can’t you?

TOWN CLERK: Another job? Are you crazy, man? Have you taken French leave of your wits and senses?

THE STRANGER: (Perturbed.) I don’t understand. What do you mean?

TOWN CLERK: Yerrah, man, where were you brought up? Here you are in the position of a man that wasn’t sanctioned by the Department. It’ll be all over the town be tomorrow morning. Shure you might as well be dead, man.

SHAWN: (With most emphatic approval.) I do, I do. I do, I do.

THE STRANGER: I don’t understand. What of it if I’m not approved? I lose my job. All I want is another job.

TOWN CLERK: (Turning in despair to the others.) Yerrah, shure the man is mad.

SHAWN: (Indulgently, to THE STRANGER.) Do you know, ‘tis a hard . . . fierce . . . unmerciful thing to say, but in this part of the country a man that was not sanctioned by the Department—well, do you know, he was better off in Van Diemen’s Land. He was better off in some faraway quarter . . . like the Republic of China. . . .

TOWN CLERK: I’ll enlighten you, boy. You can be up for murder and welcome. You can take a hatchet and cut your wife into two pieces. People will say you’re . . . an odd class of a man. But this business of not being sanctioned—oh, begob, that’s a different pair of sleeves. Wait and see, boy. Wait and see. As long as you live you’ll rue the day.

KELLY: (Gravely.) Oh, it’s very bad. It’s very difficult.

SHAWN: ‘Tis like havin’ insanity on the mother’s side.

THE STRANGER: (Agitated.) But I have to stay here for a while. I must have a job. I MUST HAVE A JOB. Surely you can fix me up for a few weeks, Mr. Kelly? I can’t be fired out like this without warning. It isn’t fair.

(During this speech the TOWN CLERK has again retreated to the background, whipped out his bottle and drained it in one ferocious gulp. He advances again, looking very fortified. He then adopts a most solemn attitude and gestures with his finger.)

REILLY: (Who has been listening curiously, surprised by the trend of the conversation.) I don’t know which of yez is the greatest twister, but bedad ye’re all of the one mind now. Begor, it’s changed times. (He turns.) And me own teetotal pal footless there on the sofa.

KELLY: The appointment was perfectly in order until the Department said their say.

THE STRANGER: (Very perturbed.) I don’t see why everybody should be against me like this.

SHAWN: I do, I do. ‘Tis a very serious thing not to be sanctioned. ‘Tis a very dark thing.

REILLY: It’s the worst thing that could happen to you in this life. (To THE STRANGER.) Listen, mister-me-friend. Aren’t you in digs below in Connors?

THE STRANGER: I am.

REILLY: I know you are. Try going back there tonight. Just try it.

THE STRANGER: What do you mean?

SHAWN: Ah, glory be to God, you don’t think big Mick Connors would let a man that wasn’t sanctioned spend the night under his roof?

REILLY: Not bloody likely.

SHAWN: Shure no decent man would be such an omadaun.

KELLY: (With resignation.) I’m afraid you’re in a hole, my friend. I wish I could help you but this situation is beyond me. I fear it is beyond my capacity. Some things I can do. Others—I cannot.

TOWN CLERK: (Swaying and returning to the attack.) Listen, boy. Listen now, boy, till I relate a story to you. In a certain town where I was before this we had a man that wasn’t sanctioned. Thanks be to God I only met this thing once before in my life. And do you know, I will never forget it. Never, so long as I live. Don’t be talkin’ to me.

SHAWN: (Nodding heavily.) I do, I do. I know the case well. Shure ‘tis part of the history of Ireland, man.

TOWN CLERK: (As if appalled by the recollection of it.) Ah, glory be to God, it was one of the saddest—one of the most heart-rending misfortunes that I ever knew. And I’ve seen a lot of terrible tings in me time. But this was—Ah, ‘twas terrible. Terrible.

THE STRANGER: But what have I done? I haven’t done anything wrong.

REILLY: Whatever lies was in the query form the Guards is in on it. Begob, you’ll rue the day you ever met honest Mr. Kelly. Mark that, me bucko.

TOWN CLERK: (Still absorbed in his sad recollection.) Do you know, at the present time in all Ireland I don’t suppose you have more than ten unsanctioned men. God be good to the unfortunate divils. (He turns in consternation to the others.) I’D RATHER HAVE THE LEPROSY! Do you know that? I’d rather have the leprosy.

THE STRANGER: (More anxious than ever.) Look here, I don’t like this sort of talk. What do you mean?

KELLY: (Retreating to have a look at SHAW.) I can only tell you that you have my heart-felt sympathy in your misfortune.

THE STRANGER: (Shrilly, getting really frightened.) What on earth do you mean? Will you please explain?

REILLY: (Genially.) I’ll tell you. Number One, no bed for you tonight. Number Two, no cigarettes or beer no matter where you ask for them. Number Three, no answer to any question no matter where you put it in this town. You’re a man that wasn’t sanctioned by the Department. You’ll know what that means before you’re much older or my name isn’t Reilly.

SHAWN: (Nodding.) I do, I do.

TOWN CLERK: (Reminiscently.) This other unfortunate divil had a very misfortunate wind-up at the latter end. It was kept out of the Examiner but I remember it well. He opened himself up somewhere with a bit of a shavin’-razor.

REILLY: (Shrugging.) Damn the chance of this fly-be-night opening his neck. Only decent people take their own lives. Many’s a time I’ve felt like it meself.

THE STRANGER: (In a low voice.) And why did this man commit suicide?

TOWN CLERK: Yerrah, shure the man couldn’t get his fare to America and what else could he do?

SHAWN: There was once an unsanctioned man in me own part of the country, years—ah, years and years ago. The same day the letter came from the Department, he was on his way across the great blue ocean. Where did the poor gawm go but Boston, a place that is full of the grand sea-divided exiles of our land. Well, do you know, the first hotel he walked into it was thrown in his face. The hall-porter, do you know, was from my part of the country too. And the poor unfortunate man was put out on the street again.

TOWN CLERK: Shure I know that case. He had to fly off to Mexico and spend the rest of his days living with dagoes and all classes of wild men.

THE STRANGER: (Bursting out with great nervousness.) But supposing I don’t want a job? Supposing I have enough to live on for a while? Supposing I lived here very quietly and never went out and never spoke to anybody?

TOWN CLERK: Live where, man?

THE STRANGER: Where? . . . Anywhere. If they won’t let me stay where I am . . . couldn’t I live with Mr. Kelly? Couldn’t I, Mr. Kelly? Just for a few months till you take your seat? What’s wrong with that?

KELLY: (Horrified.) O, no thanks, that wouldn’t do at all. Wouldn’t do at all, at all.

THE STRANGER: But WHY?

KELLY: The clergy wouldn’t have it in the first place.

SHAWN: I do. Father Healy is very strict about unsanctioned men in the parish. He says it gives great scandal.

THE STRANGER: (Now thoroughly upset.) THE CLERGY? What have

they got to do with it? THE CLERGY?

REILLY: If you’re in this town tomorrow morning Father Healy will have a word to say to you. He’ll pack you out quick enough.

THE STRANGER: (Shrilly.) What? A priest?

KELLY: If you try to stay here you’ll have no life, man. Nobody will talk to you.

THE STRANGER: (Forgetting himself in his anxiety.) But I HAVE to talk to people. That’s my job. I have to talk to them, to persuade them, to make them do what I want—I mean, I like talking to people . . . (He breaks off in confusion.)

TOWN CLERK: You’ll have to do your talking to the Mexicans, like the other fella. (The telephone rings and REILLY darts over to answer it.)

REILLY: What? This is Reilly. Yes, he’s here. (He listens.) I see. (He puts down the receiver looking very surprised.)

KELLY: Who was that?

REILLY: That was Guard Shanahan. He’s on his way up to ask a lot of questions about that query form and he says there’s going to be a Petition.

KELLY: A Petition——?

REILLY: Yes, a Petition. You’re not a T.D. yet. There was some monkey-work. When the last two boxes of votes were opened they were full of ashes. (He turns to the others.) What do you think of that?

TOWN CLERK: (Astonished.) Ashes? Well, begor . . . that’s extraordinary.

KELLY: (Incredulously.) A petition? Ashes! Well, upon my word! Upon my word!

TOWN CLERK: (Briskly to hide uneasiness.) Well, do oo now, if there’s a Guard comin’ up here with his notebook and pincil I tink I’ll mosey off and have a nice bottle of stout for meself. Cheery-pip, lads!

(Exit.)

THE STRANGER: (Now thoroughly scared.) I have nothing to hide, gentlemen. If the police wish to see me I am at their service. I’d better get my coat . . . I’ll be back in a moment.

(He opens the press at back of stage, unnoticed by all save KELLY. Revealed are the rows of delf, etc. He quietly closes it behind him.)

REILLY: (Exploding venomously as he gets ready to depart.) Well, I’m a happy man tonight. I’ve smashed to smithereens the lousiest twist, the dirtiest ready-up, that was ever tried on in this town. I have fixed the hash of that customer gone out, whoever the hell he is. And if I know anything (To KELLY.) damn the T.D. you’ll ever be (sneering) . . . Mr. Chairman, sir!

(There is silence. SHAWN remains sprawled on his chair, delighted with himself. KELLY remains prostrate on his chair, his head bowed. Immediately the general gloom is punctured by a very abrupt and bad-tempered entrance on the part of HANNAH.)

HANNAH: Well, this is a nice house! Drunken thollabawns turning the place into a bear garden and herself upstairs with a nervous breakdown from the carry-on ye had between the lot of ye in this room!

SHAWN: (With great compassion.) Ah, the grand . . . fine . . . religious . . . soft-hearted woman. ‘Tis off home I’ll bring meself this minute and lave her to her prayers.

HANNAH: (Belligerently.) Aw, we’ve had enough chat out of you.

SHAWN: (Rising and waddling out.) I do, I do. Goodbye to yeh, Mr. Chairman. I do, I do.

HANNAH: (To KELLY.) And I’m talkin’ to you too. Yourself and your friend on the sofa. (KELLY looks up uncomprehendingly.) I’m going to make a pot of good . . . strong . . . black coffee. That’ll give yez all the power to walk again.

(She bustles over to the press into which THE STRANGER disappeared. She throws it wide open, again showing the rows of delf. There is no trace of THE STRANGER. While taking out the cups she half turns her head and keeps on scolding.)

Because walk out of this house is what the pair of ye is going to do, and in double quick time, too. The divil himself couldn’t make more trouble than the pair of ye. (Exit with coffee pot and cups.)

(KELLY is left alone with the inert SHAW. He mutters the word ‘Petition’ a few times and gradually seems to recover. Still muttering the word, he rises unsteadily to his feet and takes a casual look at the press. His eyes are staring.)

KELLY: Ashes? . . . A Petition? . . . A Petition? (He strides about feverishly.) A Petition? (He becomes defiant.) To the devil with their petition! TO THE DEVIL WITH THEIR PETITION! Simply because I choose to make a few Christian principles the basis of my scheme of life, they hate me—they loathe me—they seek to fling me aside . . . TO RUN ME OUT OF PUBLIC LIFE! But they will not succeed—do you hear me?—THEY WILL NOT SUCCEED. I owe a debt to this old land that bore me. That debt I will repay. THAT DEBT I WILL REPAY. And no contemptible conspiracy, no insidious intrigue, no treachery or trickery shall stand between me and my rightful place in the free parliament of the sovereign Irish people. IN . . . THAT . . . NATIONAL . . . ASSEMBLY I will lift a fearless and unfettered voice to lash and castigate the knaves and worse than knaves who have sold out the old land on the altar of mammon, I will assail without mercy the gombeen men, the time-servers, the place-hunters (he takes up his hat) the fools and flunkeys and godless money-changers—I’ll outwit them all and destroy them, DESTROY THEM FINALLY. . . .

(In a transport of oratory, he has left the room towards the end of the speech. Instantly the devil has re-entered from the press, this time attired in the ceremonial robe of black used in the Prologue. He has a document in his hand. The light goes down until he is standing only in a green spotlight, a figure of great horror. His lips begin to move and immediately the voices of the other characters are heard. The voices can be those of the characters themselves but it will appear that the devil is mimicking them with diabolical skill.)

SHAWN: Sure didn’t he marry a grand big heifer of a woman. I do, I do. I do, I do.

KELLY: I will speak my mind freely and fearlessly in the parliament of the Irish people—and without regard to political expediency, the dictates of vested interests, or the crack of the party whip!

TOWN CLERK: Come out and have a glawsheen, it’s tin to tin.

KELLY: I won’t be bought—do you hear me?—I WON’T BE BOUGHT!

REILLY: There’s a dirty ready-up here and I’m not going to stand for it! I’M NOT GOING TO STAND FOR IT!

SHAWN: The grand . . . fine . . . nice . . . religious-minded woman. I do, I do.

KELLY: (Shouting.) Just because I make a few simple Christian principles my rule of life, they hate me—THEY HATE ME!

SHAWN: (Very softly.) I do, I do. I do, I do.

THE STRANGER: Not for any favour . . . in heaven or earth or hell . . . would I take that Kelly and the others with me to where I live, to be in their company for ever . . . and ever . . . and ever. Here’s the contract, his signed bond. (He shows the document and tears it up savagely.) I WANT NOTHING MORE OF IRISH PUBLIC LIFE! (Pause; he turns away, suddenly weary.) I’m tired. I’m going home.

BLACK-OUT AND CURTAIN

 

THIRST

(short version)

Characters in the play

MR. C[OULAHAN]. JEM	A Publican
PETER THE SERGEANT	Customers

Thirst was first performed by the Dublin Gate Theatre in 1942.
The cast was as follows:

MR. C[OULAHAN].	Robert Hennessy
JEM	William Fassbender
PETER	Sean Colleary
THE SERGEANT	Liam Gaffney

The curtain goes up on the bar. It is after hours. Light from a distant street-lamp shines faintly on the window. The bar is lit (very badly) by two candles which are set on the counter, one of them stuck in a bottle. The publican, MR. C., who is suitably fat and prosperous in appearance, is leaning over the centre of the counter talking to PETER, who is sitting on a stool side-face to the audience. JEM, who is in the nature of a hanger-on, is away in a gloomy corner where he can barely be discerned. Both customers are drinking pints; the publican has a small whiskey. The curtain has gone up in the middle of a conversation between PETER and the publican.

MR. C.: (Dramatically.) And do you know why? (There is a pause.) Do you know why?

PETER: Begor, Mr Coulahan, I couldn’t tell you.

MR. C.: (Loudly, lifting a bottle and pouring.) Because he’s no good—that’s why—no bloody good at all! (Finishes pouring bottle.) And another thing—(Dramatic pause.)

(He finishes his drink in one gulp. Turns to the shelves for the whiskey bottle and noisily fills himself another. As the talk proceeds he is occupied with pulling two further stouts to fill up the customers’ glasses. PETER smokes and bends his head reflectively. JEM is silent save for drinking noises. He shows his face for a moment in the gloom by lighting a cigarette.)

MR. C.: He has a brother from the County Galway that comes up every year for the Horse Show, a hop-off-my-thumb that you wouldn’t notice passing you on the stairs, all dressed out in fancy riding-breeches. Last year he turned up in the uncle’s pub beyond in Drumcondra, complete with fountain-pen . . . and cheque-book. Gave your man as his reference. (He pauses ominously.) My God, the unfortunate bloody uncle. (He laughs hollowly.) The poor unfortunate bloody uncle. Twelve pounds fifteen shillings he was stuck for. Thirteen pounds you might say—thirteen pounds that he spent a good month of his life gathering together by the sweat of his brow! Now for God’s sake—did you ever hear anything like it?

JEM: (Who has a strong Dublin accent.) Oh, the cheque-book is the man. Manny’s the time I wished to God I had one of me own!

PETER: (Slyly.) Of course, that crowd digs with the other foot. It’s a lot of money to be stung for, there’s no doubt. Some publicans are very foolish.

MR. C.: Digs with the other foot? If you was to ask me—they dig with both feet! Whatever suits their book at the time, they’ll dig with that one. And they do all the digging in other people’s pockets! (Sips whiskey.) Sure, I believe your man’s wife was up for lifting stuff out of Slattery’s.

PETER: (Surprised.) Is that so? I didn’t hear that.

MR. C.: Certainly, man. Certainly she was.

JEM: Begob, half the town’s wheelin’ stuff outa that place night and day, they do be bringin’ hand-carts up there, some of them.

PETER: (Reflectively.) It’s funny how some families seem to go all the one way. It’s some sort of a streak. It’s in the blood, I suppose.

JEM: Aye, it’s the blood right enough.

PETER: There’s a bad ugly streak in that crowd—although every one of them got a good education. All at the Christian Brothers, no less.

MR. C.: (Turns to bottle behind him and pours himself another whiskey.) Don’t be talking, man! Sure it’s up in Mountjoy jail I’d have every one of them, and that’s where they’ll be yet—doing a stretch of seven years apiece for grand larceny and robbery and thievery and every crime in the calendar. And wasn’t there another brother that skipped to America after sticking up a bank in the Troubles—all in the name of Ireland. (He moves to cash register.)

JEM: Begob, Mr Coulahan, and I forgot about the bank stick-up!

MR. C.: Sure we put up with far too much in this country. (Sighs.) And there’s a certain other gentleman comes in here for his pint that ought to be locked up too, a very . . . very . . . respectable . . . gentleman—(He breaks off.) What was that?

(Noise.)

JEM: Eh, what’s that?

PETER: (Startled.) What? I heard nothing.

(COULAHAN moves to shelves.)

MR. C.: Shhh! Shhh! For God’s sake! It’s the Guards!

PETER and JEM: The Guards! The Guards! Begob! We’re ruined!

(PETER and JEM duck behind counter.)

MR. C.: Shhh.

(He blows out one of the candles, completely obliterating JEM. He tiptoes to the window and listens with bent head.)

MR. C.: (In agitated whisper.) Shhh! Now for God’s sake. I think that bloody Sergeant is on the prowl.

JEM: Begob! We’re bunched! (He blows out candle on table.)

MR. C. and PETER: Shhh!

(Three knocks on the door.)

SERGEANT: (Outside door.) Guards on duty! Guards on duty. Will you please open up, Mr Coulahan.

PETER: We’ll keep very quiet.

MR. C.: (Loudly, in violent agitation.) SHHHHH.

(There is complete silence. PETER leans over to the remaining candle and caps the flame in his hands to hide the lights. MR. C. is bent nearly double in his intent listening and keeps on Shhh-ing and waving a hand for even further silence. There is no sound at all without. Thirty seconds pass. Suddenly MR. C. leaps at the candle and blows it out, leaving nothing visible save the window that is lit by the street-lamp. Almost simultaneously three loud knocks are given on the door.)

(The knocks are repeated, more urgently. The three remain completely still. Then MR. C. moves to the counter where he finishes his drink. The knocks are given again. The bottom of the door is kicked slightly and the thick brogue of the SERGEANT is faintly heard shouting something. MR. C. is heard sighing heavily.)

MR. C.: Well, that’s that, that’s that. (He is groping for his matches, finds them and carefully lights both candles.) Yes, that’s that.

(The knocks are repeated even louder. He comes from behind the counter. Then moves to the door.)

MR. C.: Alright, Sergeant, I’m coming. (He opens the door.) Good night to you, Sergeant. That’s a hardy cold one for you.

SERGEANT: (To invisible Guard.) That’s all right, Guard.

(SERGEANT enters. COULAHAN closes door, switches on light.)

SERGEANT: It is, indeed, as you say, Mr Coulahan, a cowld, raw class of a night. ‘Tisn’t a seasonable time of the year at all for this time of year. ‘Tis not indeed!

MR. C.: (Coming forward with a show of forced gaiety and going back behind the counter.) Well, we can’t complain, we had an easy enough winter up till now. No, we can’t complain. We can’t . . . complain.

(The SERGEANT has found his notebook and pencil.)

SERGEANT: It’s in the wife’s name, if I’m not mistaken, Mr Coulahan?

MR. C.: Yes, Sergeant, the house is in the wife’s name.

(Pause.)

PETER: You know my name, I suppose, Sergeant?

SERGEANT: I do. I do. And if I’m not altogether mistaken, that’s another old friend of mine beyant.

JEM: Oh, too true, Sergeant. Manny’s the time we’ve met before. And will again, please God.

SERGEANT: O faith we will. We’ll meet again, and many a time. Many a time.

JEM: I suppose, Sergeant, you wouldn’t mind if I finished me bottle of stout? We don’t want waste in these hard times, do we?

SERGEANT: (Turning away from JEM’S direction with great deliberation.) What ye might do when me back is turned, is a thing I would know nothing at all about.

(All resume their drinks, which are nearly full, the SERGEANT standing very aloof with his back to the counter. He appears to be engrossed in his notebook.)

PETER: We might as well be hung for sheep as lambs, I suppose.

MR. C.: (Dismally.) Yes, indeed. We all know you have the terrible time of it, Sergeant, in the performance of your duty.

PETER: (Moves to bar.) Begob and you’re right, Mr Coulahan.

MR. C.: It would be as much as my livelihood or your promotion in the force was worth for me to offer you a drink after hours in these premises. Or for you to accept it—even on such a blasted, blizzardy one like this when the flesh might be skinned off your bones and you in the pursuit of your duty. Think of that, gentlemen!

PETER: It’s tough, right enough, Sergeant. (He turns to SERGEANT.)

MR. C.: If I was caught offering you a drink after hours, Sergeant, I could be brought up on the gravest charges—bribery, corruption and attempted suborning of the police force.

(JEM moves to bar.)

JEM: God save us, Mr Coulahan!

MR. C.: What would happen to you, Sergeant, I don’t rightly know at all—not being fully acquainted with the rules, regulations and disciplinary measures governing the Civic Guards or Gawrdah Sheekawnah, as now known. (Sighs deeply.) We both have the hard times of it, Sergeant, and that’s the truth. (He turns for bottles behind him.) A strong ball of malt is what I’m badly in need of myself at this moment—what with being perished with the cold all day. (Pours drink.) And now, at night, with a breach of closed hours on me hands. (Sighs heavily and takes drink.)

JEM: True enough. The cold was somethin’ fierce today. Desperate. You’d want mufflers round yer legs as well as round yer neck.

PETER: Well, the summer won’t be long now.

MR. C.: The summer? (Sighs.) D’you remember last August, Sergeant?

SERGEANT: I do and I don’t, Mr Coulahan. I do and I don’t.

MR. C.: It was the grand month of summer weather, Sergeant. I was out swimming twice. The water was like soup. And begob the heat of the rocks would nearly burn the feet off you.

JEM: I never fancied the water at all, Mr Coulahan. Never had any time for it. It’s not a natural thing to be getting into. It’s alright for fish, of course.

MR. C.: That month of August was so hot it—it put me in mind of the First War—when I was out beyond in Messpott!

JEM: Holy God, where’s that?

MR. C.: Messiopotamia! Did ye never hear tell of Messiopotamia? And there was me fighting the Turks and the Arabs—fighting for small nationalities! That’s the quare one, Sergeant. That month of summer we had brought me back to the First World War.

SERGEANT: Them two Great Wars were desperate and ferocious encounters.

PETER: I suppose it was very hot out there?

MR. C.: Hot did you say? I don’t believe there was heat anywhere like it before or after. It was a class of heat that people in this part of the world wouldn’t understand at all. Forty years ago and more and I can still feel that sun beyond in Shatt-el-Arab. That was where we landed.

(The SERGEANT takes no notice and MR. C. quietly refills his own drink and pulls three stouts, the third of which he places on the counter between himself and the SERGEANT.)

PETER: Was there much—sunstroke?

MR. C.: Sunstroke? We thought the heat in the ship was bad enough—and so it was—till we landed! Nearly three thousand of us! (Gasps.) The first thing I feels walking down the gangway is a big rush of hot air up me nose. The heat was beltin’ up outa the ground like smoke out of an engine. The air was so thin and so hot that you wouldn’t feel yourself breathing it. It was—stretched out, d’you know. Thinned out be the heat coming at it outa the ground and outa the sky and all sides. It was dried and no moisture in it at all—like a withered pea. (Pause.) It was like putting your head into an oven and taking a deep breath.

PETER: I wouldn’t fancy that at all—bad as the weather is in Ireland, it’s better than that.

MR. C.: You haven’t heard the half, so you haven’t. We weren’t finished gasping for breath, when another desperate thing happened! The lads were hours coming off the boat, and the rest of us was lined up there on the quayside. It was this way—I got tired of standing on me feet—if you know what I mean—and went to change me weight from one foot to the other. Well, do you know what I’m going to tell you? My feet was stuck. (They gasp.) Stuck to the ground.

JEM: Begob, ye musta had spikes in them.

MR. C.: Spikes be damned! Weren’t we all standing there in our tropical rubber-soled shoes, and wasn’t all the rubber melting under us.

JEM: I never heard the like of that. Never.

MR. C.: A thousand men lined up there on the quay—and not one of them able to budge. My God, it was fierce! Fierce!

JEM: Did you ever throw a bit of rubber inta the fire by accident? Begob, the hum off it would destroy yer nose altogether.

MR. C.: Of course, we were soldiers. No question of ‘Please Sir, I’m stuck to the ground, Sir! Me shoes is meltin’, Sir, what’ll I do, Sir?’ None of that class of thing at all. Oh, no. It was just a question of standing there, waiting for the order to quick march. You shoulda seen us when we got the order. D’you know what it was like? Did you ever see a fly—a fly trying to walk off a fly-paper?

JEM: I know what you mean—exactly! Buzzin’ and roarin’ and twistin’ and workin’ away with the legs—up to his neck in sticky stuff.

MR. C.: Just like flies on a fly-paper we were.

JEM: Isn’t that what I was sayin’?

MR. C.: It was a march of only two hundred yards to our quarters—but it was the dirtiest—sweatiest—stickiest—and driest march we ever had. Every man in a lather of sweat, his clothes stickin’ to his skin, and his tongue hangin’ outa him lika dog’s.

(Here both JEM and PETER take long and resounding slugs from their cool drinks. The SERGEANT fusses uncomfortably with his book as if determined to take no interest in MR. C.’S recital.)

PETER: Begob, Sergeant, and me own tongue’s beginnin’ to hang out like a dog’s as well!

MR. C.: Well, begging the Sergeant’s pardon and kind indulgences, I’m going to have a ball of malt meself because I feel the want of it after thinking about me days as a soldier out in Messpot, God help me. (MR. C. drinks.)

SERGEANT: (Ponderously.) I’m finishing up me notes here—and when me notes is finished, we’ll all have to say good night and go home to our beds—and thank God we have beds to go to.

JEM: You never spoke a truer word, Sergeant. Sometimes I do be. . . .

SERGEANT: There might be murders and all classes of illegalities goin’ on behind me back, but what I don’t see I don’t know. . . .

JEM: That’s a fact, Sergeant.

SERGEANT: The Law is a very—intricate thing. And nobody knows it better than meself.

MR. C.: Spoken like a sensible man, Sergeant, and we’re all very grateful. We know you’re only doin’ your duty. Just the same as we were when we were servin’ in the King’s uniform out in Messiopotamia before it was burnt off our backs with the heat.

PETER: I suppose you had many a bad time after the day you landed in the rubber shoes?

MR. C.: Bad times? BAD TIMES did ye say? Did I not. . . . (Gulps another drink.) Did I not tell you about the desert?

JEM: You did not. (Pause.)

MR. C.: We had some desperate times out in the desert. No man that lived through that will ever have the memory of it off his mind—not even if he had his brain washed—and that’s a fact!

JEM: Begob, and I’d hate to have me brain washed! It’s bad enough havin’ yer. . . .

MR. C.: There was a detachment of Arab madmen sighted away out in the desert near some oasis or other—There they were, musterin’ together to get ready to come in and attack us. . . .

PETER: Begor . . .

MR. C.: Maybe there was a thousand of them in it, and others comin’ in on camels to join them.

PETER: I’d be nervous of camels.

MR. C.: So the order comes down that we’re all to march out and go for them before they had a chance to get themselves in battle-order. (Sips drink.) That was the way it was. I’ll never forget it—as long as I live. Never! (Pause.)

PETER: Were they far out in the desert?

MR. C.: I’d say—I’d say—about twenty-five or—mebbe thirty miles—as the crow flies.

JEM: Does there be crows in the desert?

MR. C.: At six o’clock in the morning—sic ack-emma we called it—we got the order. (In Sergeant-Major’s voice.) Get ready to march in two hours. (Normal voice.) On with the rubber shoes and the packs and the belts and the water-bottles, and the bloody big rifles! It was a load that would kill a man in his health. Then out on parade. (Sergeant-Major voice.) Quick March! Left, right, left, right! (Normal voice.) Away out into the wilds with us—a straggling string of men staggering out into the burning sand. (He drinks.) A twenty-four hours forced march. (Puts down glass.) But we were bet—bet to the ropes! It was the shoes again.

JEM: Didn’t I tell ye?

MR. C.: (Drinks again.) Then the rubber began to melt again—and give out little puffs of smoke. Soon the feet began to be roasted like two joints with a fire under them!

PETER: The Lord save us!

MR. C.: Don’t be talkin’, man! When I’d got an extra stab of heat in the feet, I’d give a lep inta the air with the pain of it.

JEM: I declare to me God!

MR. C.: But when I’d come down on the sand again, I’d get worse roastin’ from the weight of the lep—showers of sparks flyin’ right, left and centre. (Drinks again.) And d’you know what was happenin’ all this time?

JEM: I suppose the enemy lads was lyin’ in wait behind the trees?

MR. C.: What trees?

JEM: Wouldn’t there be all classes of palm trees about the place?

MR. C.: Well, I’ll tell you what was happenin’. (Drinks again.) I declare to God the sun began to come down on top of us—outa the sky! Every minute that passed, it seemed to be lower—and lower—down—down—on top of our heads. The heat, gentlemen—the heat! (Gulps hurriedly.) I can nearly feel it still. Then after a while I felt a queer thing happenin’.

JEM: I was goin’ to say that.

PETER: Would ye shut up, and let. . . .

MR. C.: After a little while I begun to dry up!

PETER: Dry up?

MR. C.: Every bit of me begun to get dried up and withered. The first thing that went outa order was the tongue and the mouth. Me tongue begun to get dry and cracked! And then it begun to get—bigger!

JEM: Oh, Holy Hour!

MR. C.: It swelled out till it nearly choked me and got as hard and dry as a big cinder. I couldn’t swally with it! (All three gulp drinks.) The whole inside of me mouth got dry and cracked the same way—and so did me neck and all inside me.

PETER: The Lord between us and all harm!

MR. C.: It was like bein’ grilled—except there was no gravy.

PETER: I suppose the eyes were affected, too.

MR. C.: Don’t be talkin’ man! The eyes—the eyes begun to get singed and burnt at the edges. And, as well as that, the watery part dried up in a way that was something fierce. (Pause.) Before I knew where I was—the eyebrows were gone!

PETER: No!

MR. C.: Withered and scorched away be the heat they were. Hell itself. (Gulps another drink.) It was terrible. There we were, staggerin’ through the bloody—brazen—boilin’—blanketty-blank heat. The skin chippin’ and curlin’ off our faces. Our bodies dryin’ up and witherin’ into wrinkles like—prunes! And the worst of it—a hot, dry thirst comin’ up outa our necks, like the blast from a furnace. Oh, my God, it was desperate—desperate. (He gulps again.) D’you know the first thing the lads done—nearly every one of them? (Pause.) Took off their water-bottles—and threw them away. And do you know why? Do you know why? (Pause.) I’ll tell you why—the water-bottles were made of metal. Some class of anumilliyum—anumulliyum as thin as paper. When that sun got to work on them bottles, I needn’t tell you what happened. First of all, the water got up near to boiling-point. Even if you could hold the bottle in your hand and open it, the water would be no good to you—because it would scald the neck off you. There was only one thing to do with the bottles—get rid of them! Matteradam what else happens.

PETER: Wasn’t it terrible, throwin’ away bottles full of water in the middle of the desert.

MR. C.: Well, there you are—there you are.

JEM: Of course you coulda buried all the bottles deep down in a hole and come back for them when the thirst was at you. The water’d be nice and cool then.

PETER: And what happened after that?

MR. C.: What happened after that is not a thing I would like to swear to because—the heat began to have a very bad effect—up here—(tapping forehead)—in the attic.

PETER: I suppose so.

MR. C.: There’s a lot of moisture and blood and so on in the brain, y’know. The brain is like a wet sponge, and very queer things are goin’ to happen. Very queer things.

PETER: I suppose you’re lucky to be alive at all.

MR. C.: Very queer things. (Lowering voice.) The first thing was—I lost me sense of direction! I didn’t know whether me head was me heels or whether I was standin’ or sittin’, d’you know? I was fallin’ all over the place.

PETER: I declare to me——

MR. C.: So were the other lads—walkin’ and crawlin’ on top of each other—every man as dry as a brick, with his tongue swollen out in his parched mouth half-chokin’ him. And—the—thirst!!! My God, the thirst!!!!

(SERGEANT comes to counter and takes three drinks, one by one, and drinks them.)

SERGEANT: Tell me, lads. Tell me—does anyone mind if I sing ‘The Rose of Tralee’?

(They all sing.)

 

THIRST

(long version)

The curtain goes up on the bar. It is after hours. Light from a distant street-lamp shines faintly on the window. The bar is lit (very badly.) by two candles which are set on the counter, one of them stuck in a bottle. The publican, MR. C., who is suitably fat and prosperous in appearance, is leaning over the centre of the counter talking to PETER, who is sitting on a stool side-face to the audience. JEM, who is in the nature of a hanger-on, is away in a gloomy corner where he can barely be discerned. Both customers are drinking pints; the publican has a small whiskey. The curtain has gone up in the middle of a conversation between PETER and the publican.

MR. C.: (Dramatically.) And do you know why? (There is a pause.) Do you know why?

PETER: Begor, Mr Coulahan, I couldn’t tell you.

MR. C.: (Loudly.) Because he’s no good, that’s why. He’s no bloody good!

(He finishes his drink in one gulp, turns to the shelves for the whiskey bottle and noisily fills himself another. As the talk proceeds he is occupied with pulling two further stouts to fill up the customers’ glasses. PETER smokes and bends his head reflectively. JEM is silent save for drinking noises. He shows his face for a moment in the gloom by lighting a cigarette.)

MR. C.: And another thing. He has a brother from the County Galway that comes up every year for the Horse Show, a hop-off-me-thumb that you wouldn’t notice passing you on the stairs, all dressed out in fancy riding-breeches. Last year he turned up in the uncle’s pub beyond in Drumcondra, complete with fountain-pen . . . and cheque-book. Gave your man as his reference. (He pauses ominously.) My God, the unfortunate bloody uncle. (He laughs hollowly.) The poor unfortunate bloody uncle. Twelve pounds fifteen shillings he was stuck for. Thirteen pounds, you might say. Thirteen pounds that he spent a good month of his life gathering together by the sweat of his brow. Now for God’s sake—did you ever hear anything like it?

JEM: (Who has a strong Dublin accent.) Oh, the cheque-book is the man. Manny’s the time I wished to God I had one of me own!

PETER: (Slyly.) It’s a lot of money to be stung for, there’s no doubt. Some publicans are very foolish. Of course, that crowd digs with the other foot—you know that, I suppose.

MR. C.: If you ask me, they dig with both feet! Whatever foot suits their book at the time, they’ll dig with that one. And they do all the digging in other people’s pockets! (His voice rises.) Sure, I believe your man’s wife was up for lifting stuff out of Woolworth’s.

PETER: (Surprised.) Is that so? I didn’t hear that.

MR. C.: Certainly, man. Certainly she was.

JEM: Begob, half the town’s wheelin’ stuff outa that place night and day, they do be bringin’ hand-carts up there, some of them.

PETER: (Reflectively.) It’s funny how some families seem to go all the one way. It’s some sort of a streak. It’s in the blood, I suppose. There’s a bad ugly streak in that crowd although every one of them got a good education, they were all at the Christian Brothers.

MR. C.: Don’t be talking man, sure it’s locked up above in Mountjoy I’d have every one of them and that’s where they’ll be yet—doing a stretch of seven years apiece for grand larceny and robbery and thievery and every crime in the calendar. And wasn’t there another brother that skipped to America after sticking up a bank in the troubles—all in the holy name of Ireland.

JEM: That’s another thing I didn’t think of at the time!

MR. C.: Sure we put up with far too much in this country. There’s a certain other man that comes in here for his pint that ought to be locked up too, a very . . . very . . . respectable . . . gentleman—(He breaks off.) What was that?

PETER: (Startled.) What? I heard nothing.

MR. C.: Shhhhh!

(He blows out one of the candles, completely obliterating JEM. He tiptoes to the window and listens with bent head.)

MR. C.: (In an agitated whisper.) Shhhhh! Now for God’s sake! I think that bloody Sergeant is on the prowl.

JEM: (Whispering.) Ah, not at all.

PETER: We’ll keep very quiet.

MR. C.: (Loudly, in a violent agitation.) SHHHHHH!

(There is complete silence. PETER leans over to the remaining candle and cups the flame in his hands to hide the light. MR. C. is bent nearly double in his intent listening and keeps on shhhhh-ing and waving a hand for even further silence. There is no sound at all without. Thirty seconds pass. Suddenly MR. C. leaps at the candle and blows it out, leaving nothing visible save the window that is lit by the street-lamp. Almost simultaneously three loud knocks are given on the door.)

JEM: (Half aloud.) Oh Holy God! We’re bunched!

MR. C. and PETER: (Frantically.) Shhhhhh!

(The knocks are repeated more urgently. The three remain completely still. The knocks are given again, the bottom of the door is kicked slightly, and the thick brogue of the sergeant is faintly heard shouting something. MR. C. is heard sighing heavily.)

MR. C.: Well that’s that. That’s that. That’s that. (He is groping for his matches, finds them and carefully lights both candles.) Yes, that’s that. (The knocks are repeated even louder.) That’s that. (He comes from behind the counter and goes to the door.) Holy God almighty. Alright, Sergeant. (He opens the door boldly.) Good night to you, Sergeant. That’s a hardy cold one for you.

JEM: Well, this is a five bob fine in anny case if it’s not something worse. (Half to himself.) Sure I haven’t five bob.

PETER: This is terrible.

(The SERGEANT enters without a word and the door is closed and barred behind him. He is the large, solemn, country type, full of the majesty of his office. He moves very slowly, takes up the two half-pint measures to examine them. There is complete silence. MR. C. is standing in petrified trepidation near the door. The SERGEANT has at last satisfied himself as to all the facts of the situation and begins a leisurely search for his notebook. Then he speaks in a thick Cork brogue.)

SERGEANT: It is, indeed, Mr. C, a cowld . . . raw. . . class of a night. ‘Tisn’t a seasonable night at all. ‘Tis not indeed!

MR. C.: (Coming forward with a show of forced gaiety and going back behind the counter.) Well, we can’t complain, we had an easy enough winter. No, we can’t complain. We can’t complain. We can’t . . . complain.

(The SERGEANT has found his note-book and pencil.)

SERGEANT: It’s in the wife’s name, if I’m not mistaken, Mr. C.?

MR. C.: Yes, Sergeant, the house is in the wife’s name.

SERGEANT: (Writing very slowly.) Yes. Of course it was a good hardy day, were lucky to get the rain at night and not have it down on us in the middle of the morning.

PETER: (Brightly.) You’re quite right, Sergeant, quite right. You know my name, I suppose?

SERGEANT: I do. I do. And if I’m not altogether mistaken, that’s another old friend of mine beyant. An old friend.

JEM: Oh, too true, Sergeant. Manny’s the time we’ve met before. And will again, please God.

SERGEANT: O faith we will, we’ll meet again, and many a time. Many and many a time.

JEM: I suppose, Sergeant, you wouldn’t mind if I finished me pint? We don’t want waste in these hard times, do we?

SERGEANT: (Turning away from JEM’S direction with great deliberation.) What you might do when me back is turned is a thing I would know nothing at all about.

(All resume their drinks, which are nearly full, the SERGEANT standing very aloof with his back to the counter. He appears to be engrossed in his notebook.)

PETER: Well, maybe that’s right, we might as well be hung for sheep as lambs.

MR. C.: (Dismally.) Yes, indeed, a drop of malt is what I need at the present time because I’m not very happy at all perished with the cold all day and now I have a breach of the closed hours on me hands.

JEM: True enough, the cold was something fierce today. Desperate. You’d want mufflers around your legs as well as around your neck.

PETER: (Drinking.) Well the summer won’t be long now.

MR. C.: The summer? Aye. Do you remember last August? Do you Sergeant.

SERGEANT: (Non-committedly, still studying his book.) I do and I don’t, Mr. C., I do and I don’t.

MR. C.: (With enthusiasm.) Ah but sure it was a grand month of summer weather. I was out in the forty-foot twice on the bicycle. The water was like soup. And begob the heat of the rocks would nearly burn the feet off you.

JEM: I never fancied the water at all, never had anny time for it. It’s not a natural class of a thing to be getting into. It’s alright for fish, o’ course.

PETER: Yes, I remember the heat alright. It was one of the best months we had.

MR. C.: (Caressingly.) Ah, but sure it was grand . . . bright . . . hot . . . healthy . . . weather, great weather for youngsters. It was very hot. Do you know, it put me in mind of the last war, when I was out beyond in Messpott fighting for small nationalities. That’s a quare one, Sergeant. Brought me back to the last war.

SERGEANT: (Non-committedly.) The last war was a desperate and ferocious encounter.

PETER: (Encouragingly.) I suppose it was very hot out there?

MR. C.: Hot? HOT! I don’t believe there was heat anywhere like it before or after. It was a class of heat that people in this part of the world wouldn’t understand at all. (His voice falls confidentially.) Do you know Sergeant, a bird never flew on one wing and when your back is turned there there’s many a strange thing a man would do . . . to keep himself in the air.

(The SERGEANT takes no notice and MR. C. quickly refills his own drink and pulls three stouts, the third of which he places on the counter between himself and the SERGEANT.)

JEM: Aye, sure we might as well be old sheep as young sheep.

PETER: (Piously.) We must pack up and go home.

MR. C.: (Reminiscently.) Yes, it’s twenty-five years ago and more. And I can still feel that sun beyond in [BLANK].

JEM: Ah, begob that’s very handy.

PETER: (Seriously.) I suppose there was plenty of sunstroke among the troops and all that sort of thing.

MR. C.: Wait ’till I tell you. On the 24th of May, 1915, we landed off the troop ship at [BLANK], nearly three thousand of us! (Gasps.) We thought the heat in the boat was bad and so it was, we were packed there like cattle and the sweat rolling off us in rivers. But do you know, the sea all around us was keeping us nice and cool although we didn’t know it at the time. (He drinks.) Well, when we were shunted onto dry land, we knew all about it. God, I’ll never forget it. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.

JEM: I’m not feelin’ so cowld now meself.

MR. C.: The first thing I feel walking down the gangway is . . . a bloody big rush of hot air up my nose. The heat was beltin’ up out of the ground like smoke out of an engine. We couldn’t draw breath for five minutes with this heat pumping out of the ground. And when we did get our breath, damn the bit of good it was to us. Because, do you know what I’m going to tell you, the air was so thin and so hot that you wouldn’t feel yourself breathing it. It was . . . stretched out, d’you know, thinned out by the heat coming at it out of the ground and out of the sky and all sides. It was dried and no moisture in it at all, like a withered pea. It was like putting your head into an oven and taking a deep breath.

JEM: (Incredulously.) I see.

PETER: I wouldn’t fancy that at all, bad as the weather is in Ireland it is better than that.

MR. C.: O, it was worse than that. Far worse. I couldn’t tell you how bad it was. We weren’t finished gasping for breath, standing there lined up on the quay, when another desperate thing happened! The lads were hours coming off the boat and the rest of us was lined up there standing by waiting for kit and rifles and all this class of thing. Well, do you know what happened?

JEM: No?

MR. C.: I got tired standing on me feet, if you know what I mean, and went to change me weight from one foot to the other. Do you understand me? Well, do you know what I’m going to tell you? Me feet were stuck to the ground.

(Here the SERGEANT slightly turns his head as if to look at MR. C. to find out whether he is in earnest.)

PETER: Stuck to the ground! Lord save us!

JEM: Begob you must have had spikes in them.

MR. C.: Spikes bedamned! Weren’t we all standing there in our tropical rubber-soled shoes and wasn’t the rubber melting under us. Just imagine it, a thousand men lined up there on the quay and not one of them able to budge! Oh my God it was fierce. FIERCE! And do you know there was a stink off the rubber.

JEM: Did you ever throw a bit of rubber into the fire by accident? Begob, the hum off it would destroy your nose altogether.

(He is ignored.)

MR. C.: Of course, we were soldiers, you know. No question of (he clicks his fingers a few times like a schoolboy in class) ‘Please Sir, I’m stuck to the ground, Sir, me shoes is meltin’, Sir, what’ll I do, Sir?’ None of that class of thing at all. O no. It was just a question of standing there waiting for the order to quick march.

PETER: I see. Well, that was a nice mess to be in.

MR. C.: Don’t be talking man. You should have seen us when we got the order. Do you know what it was like? Did you ever see a fly trying to walk off a fly-paper?

JEM: O I know what you mean, buzzin’ and roarin’ and twistin’ and workin’ away with the legs, up to his neck in sticky stuff.

MR. C.: (Ignoring JEM.) Well, it was just like that. It was just like flies on a fly-paper. It was a march of two hundred yards to our quarters but it was the dirtiest . . . sweatiest . . . stickiest . . . and driest march we ever had, the skin was worn away from the top of our feet from pullin’ at the shoes, we were in a desperate condition altogether by the time we got there, every man in a lather of sweat, his clothes sticking to his skin, and his tongue hanging outa him like a dog’s.

(Here both JEM and PETER take long and resounding slugs from their cool drinks. The SERGEANT fusses uncomfortably with his book as if determined to take no interest in MR. C.’S recital.)

JEM: (After another gulp.) Begob, you’d want to keep drinkin’ for the rest of your life to make up for that!

PETER: I spent a few days over in Dover once and it can be very hot even there.

MR. C.: (Moving very quickly to pull three further stouts—one for himself this time.) Well, begging the Sergeant’s pardon and kind indulgences, I’m going to have one last bottle of stout meself because I feel the want of it after thinking about me days as a soldier out in [BLANK].

JEM: And we can all do with one, I feel sort of a tickle in me throat.

SERGEANT: (Ponderously.) I’m finishing up me notes here and when me notes is finished we’ll all have to say good night and go home to our beds and thank God we have homes to go to. There might be murders and all classes of illegalities goin’ on behind me back but what I do not see I do not know, the law is a very queer intricate thing, nobody knows it better than meself.

MR. C.: Spoken like a sensible man and we’re all very grateful, we know you’re only doin’ your duty. Just the same as we were when we were in the King’s uniform out in [BLANK]. Before it was burnt off our backs with the heat.

PETER: I suppose you had many a bad time after the day you landed in the rubber shoes?

MR. C.: Bad times? BAD TIMES? Oh Lord save us! (He takes a gulp from his stout.) We had some desperate times out in the desert. The heat out in the desert was so bad that only half the lads survived to tell the tale. We were never in action at all in that particular place but the casualties were fifty per cent.

JEM: Right enough. It’s a desperate thing to get the sun on the back of your neck, you can get all classes of strokes from that.

MR. C.: (Dropping into a tone of gentle reminiscence.) Ah yes, I remember it well. No man that lived through will ever have the memory of it off his brain. There was a detachment of Arab madmen sighted away out in the desert near some watering place or other. They were camped there and musterin’ together to get ready to come in and attack us. Maybe there was a thousand of them in it, and others comin’ in on camels to join them there. So the order comes down that we’re all to march out and go for them before they had a chance to get themselves in battle-order. Yes, that was the way it was. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.

PETER: Were they far out in the desert?

MR. C.: They were twenty-five or thirty miles as the crow flies. At six o’clock in the morning we get the order. (He adopts brassy Sergeant-Major’s voice.) GET READY TO MARCH IN TWO HOURS! (Normal voice.) On with the rubber shoes and the packs and the belts and the water-bottles. And the bloody big rifles! It was a load that would kill a man in his health even here. Then out on parade. Quick March! Left, right, left, right! Away out into the wilds with us, a straggling string of men staggering out into the burning sand just when the sun was getting into form. We were expected to meet the enemy, if you don’t mind, in the middle of the next night.

JEM: Well, that’d be good goin’. (He drinks noisily.)

MR. C.: Yes. A twenty-four hours forced march. Fair enough, you might say. But we were bet after the first hour, bet to the ropes. Wait till I tell you. (He gulps his drink noisily.) The first thing that went wrong with us was the shoes again. When I was walking along, the grains of sand were so hot that they let off sparks when my shoe rubbed them together. There was a sort of fire of sparks under my feet every time I put them down. Then the rubber began to melt again and give out little puffs of smoke and between that and the smell of the rubber burning I was in a desperate condition. Soon the feet began to be roasted like two joints with a fire under them!

PETER: Lord save us!

(The SERGEANT moves his head involuntarily in MR. C.’S direction but corrects himself in time from betraying any interest.)

MR. C.: Don’t be talking man! When I’d get an extra special stab of heat in the feet I’d give a lep into the air with the pain of it but when I’d come down on the sand again I’d get worse roasting from the weight of the lep, showers of sparks flyin’ left, right and centre and half of the lads letting squeals out of them. And do you know what was happening all this time?

JEM: I suppose the enemy lads were lyin’ in wait behind the trees with all the artillery standing by to blow the whole lot of you to hell.

MR. C.: (Shocked.) What trees?

JEM: Wouldn’t there be all classes of palm trees about the place?

PETER: Not at all, there’s nothing in a place like that only sand as far as the eye can see.

MR. C.: (Continuing.) Well, I’ll tell you what was happening all this time. I declare to God the sun began to come down on top of us out of the sky! (He looks around at each listener and pauses sullenly.) Every minute that passed it seemed to be lower and lower. Down, down, down on top of our heads. The heat. The heat gentlemen. (He puts his hands to his head as if crazed.) Oh my God, the heat.

JEM: It must have been bed alright. (He smiles noisily.)

MR. C.: Lord save us, I can nearly feel it still. I kept on staggering across the sand with the others. After a while I felt a queer thing happening. I began to dry up. Every bit of me began to get dried up and withered. The first thing that went out of order was the tongue and the mouth. My tongue began to get dry and cracked. And it began to get bigger. It swelled out till it nearly choked me and got as hard and dry as a big cinder. I couldn’t swally with it! The whole inside of me mouth got dry and cracked the same way and so did me neck and all inside me. The heat was getting down inside me and burning everything up. It was like being grilled except that there was no gravy. Then my nose began to dry up and get cracked and wrinkled like a thing you’d see on a mummy.

(Here the SERGEANT involuntarily half turns round again in amazement.)

PETER: That’s awful. I suppose the eyes were affected, too.

MR. C.: Don’t be talking, man! The eyes begun to get singed and burnt at the edges. And to close up and get smaller like a hole burnt in a table-cloth by a cigarette. And as well as that the watery part dried up in a way that was something fierce, it would all remind you of a corpse or something. And all the time that sun was coming down and sitting on us like a red hot iron. Before I know where I was, the eyebrows were gone. It was the most fierce unmerciful bit of heat I ever felt in my life, hell can’t be anything half like it.

JEM: (After a long audible gulp.) I see. I see.

PETER: (Also gulping.) That’s awful.

MR. C.: (Passing his hand over his face in crazed recollection.) It was terrible . . . terrible . . . terrible. There we were, staggering through the blank . . . brazen . . . boiling heat, the skin chipping and curling off our faces, our bodies drying up and withering into wrinkles like prunes and a hot, dry thirst coming up out of the neck like the blast from a furnace. Oh, my God, it was desperate. Do you know the first thing the lads did, nearly every one of them?

JEM: Turn back and march for home?

PETER: What?

MR. C.: TOOK OFF THEIR WATER-BOTTLES AND THREW THEM AWAY! Honest to God, now, no word of a lie. I seen them being fired away by the hundred and sitting there in the sun like bits of glass with the sun comin’ on them and takin’ the sight out of your eyes. Do you know why? DO YOU KNOW WHY?

(He turns interrogatively to each of the company in turn. Here again the SERGEANT half turns round involuntarily but checks himself barely in time. For the first time he sees the bottle of stout that has been placed within his reach. He lingers on it for a moment and then turns resolutely back to his note-book, where his show of writing is by now the barest pretence.)

MR. C.: I’ll tell you why. The water-bottles were made of metal. Some class of thin aluminium. The whole idea at the time was to do away with weight. Aluminium as thin as a sheet of paper. Well begob when that sun got to work on these bottles, I needn’t tell you what happened. First of all, the water got up nearly to boilingpoint. Even if you could hold the bottle in your hand and open it, the water would be no good to you because it would scald the neck off you. But that wasn’t the only thing. With all the staggerin’ and pullin’ and pushin’ half the lads got the two hands nearly burnt off them from touching the bottles accidentally. My God, it was fierce! Desperate! It was like walkin’ around with a brazier tacked on to your back. There was only one thing to do. (He goes through the action of firing something away.) Away with them no matter what else happens.

PETER: Well, wasn’t that terrible, throwing away bottles full of water in the middle of the desert.

MR. C.: Well, there you are, there you are.

JEM: Of course your only way was to bury all the bottles deep down in a hole and come back for them when the thirst is at you. The water would be nice and cool below in the hole of course.

PETER: (Impatiently.) Ah, for God’s sake, man. Put all the bottles down in a hole! (He turns to his host.) What happened after that?

MR. C.: (Reflectively.) Well, of course, what happened after that is not a thing I would like to swear to because (he taps his forehead ominously) the heat began to have a very bad effect on number one. There is a lot of moisture and blood and so on in the brain, you know. The brain is like a wet sponge. Dry up that sponge and very queer things are going to happen. Very queer things.

PETER: I suppose you’re lucky to be alive at all.

MR. C.: (Ignoring the remark, still lost in reflection.) Very queer things. The first thing that happened to me was I lost me sense of direction! Didn’t know whether me head was me heels or whether I was standin’ or sittin’, do you know? To tell you the God’s truth I was fallin’ all over the place. So were the other lads—walkin’ and crawlin’ on top of each other, every man as dry as a brick with his tongue swollen out in his parched mouth half-chokin’ him. And the thirst! THE THIRST!

(He passes his hand in a crazed way over his face and head. PETER and JEM give loud audible gulps. MR. C. then takes up his drink and takes a long appreciative draught.)

MR. C.: I’ll tell you how I knew I was fallin’ down in the sand. I began to suffer the agonies of the damned from me nails. I got some very fine red hot sand under them. Me nails started to singe and burn and get thin and broken at the edges.

(Here the SERGEANT hastily puts the nails of his right hand in his mouth.)

MR. C.: Me nails began to crack. I tried to put them into me mouth but there was no room, me mouth was stuffed tight with the dry swollen tongue. By this time the rubber was nearly all gone of the shoes and I was practically walkin’ in me bare feet with the red hot sand in under me toe-nails and makin’ a flitters of me feet.

JEM: Begob you were in right order there, why didn’t you turn the rifle round and give yourself a bullet in the head, sure any life would be better than that.

(MR. C. buries his face in his hands. He has apparently reached the worst part of his recollection and can scarcely bring himself to talk about it. There is a pause. Then MR. C. continues in an almost wailing voice.)

MR. C.: But the torture we got from the nails and feet was nothing. Nothing, nothing, NOTHING. It was the thirst, man alive, the thirst, THE THIRST!

JEM: The thirst is a thing that troubles us all. Every wan of us. (He gulps audibly.)

MR. C.: From falling about in the sand we all began to get a layer of fine sand on the tongue and the roof of the mouth and half-way down the neck. And the thirst that began to rise in me was something too desperate to talk about.

PETER: Dear, dear, dear. (He gulps.)

(Here the SERGEANT again stirs uneasily and steals a side-long glance at the bottle of stout. He is weakening.)

MR. C.: (Lost in recollection.) Of course by this time I was half off me head. I was driven crazy with the thirst and the sand and the heat. Nothing would do me but start thinkin’ to meself about all the nice long cool drinks I could have—buttermilk and iced water and beer—not glasses or jugs of it but buckets and buckets, big baths and tanks full of it. I pictured to meself a big river of beer coming out of a hole in the wall and me runnin’ up and putting me head under it, getting it all over me face and neck, swallyin’ away like hell at it for hours and lettin’ it run down me neck and clothes to wash away all the grit and sand and thirst and let it soak in under me nails until I was all like a bit of blottin’-paper—rotten with beer—rotten and soaked with beer through and through, and THROUGH roarin’ mad and drenched to the skin and under it with beer.

(Here JEM and PETER take long gulps. The SERGEANT has at last turned fully round to look MR. C. in the face. He is unnerved.)

MR. C.: (Resuming.) I could see in me minds eye the big vat above in Guinness’s and meself divin’ into it with the mouth open and swallyin’ . . . swallyin’ . . . swallyin’ . . . swallyin’ away for hours, lettin’ the brown porter run down me neck until I was fit to burst. . . . Until I was nearly dead from drinkin’ the lovely wet, cold, brown, lovely porter!

(Here the SERGEANT makes a loud incoherent noise, turns slowly and deliberately, lifts the glass of stout that is beside him and drinks it off in one long appreciative draught. The others look on in complete silence. He looks at the empty glass, puts it down smartly, on the counter and waves at MR. C. to convey that a fresh round should be served. Then he wipes his mouth carefully with the back of his hand.)

SERGEANT: Does anybody mind if I sing “The Rose of Tralee”?

(They all sing.)