_Mrs. Broderick:_ Many a one taking my goods on credit and I seeing their face no more. But nothing would satisfy the people of this district. Sure the great G.o.d Himself when He came down couldn't please everybody.

_Sibby:_ I am thinking you were talking of some friend, ma'am, might be apt to be coming to your aid.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Well able he is to do it if the Lord would but put it in his mind. Isn't it a strange thing the goods of this world to shut up the heart of a brother from his own, the same as Esau and Jacob, and he having a good farm of land in the County Limerick. It is what I heard that in that place the gra.s.s does be as thick as grease.

_Sibby:_ I suppose, ma'am, you wrote giving him an account of your case?

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Sure, Mr. Nestor, the dear man, has his fingers wore away writing for me, and I telling him all he had or had not to say.

At Christmas I wrote, and at Little Christmas, and at St. Brigit's Day, and on the Feast of St. Patrick, and after that again such time as I had news of the summons being about to be served. And you may ask Mrs. Delane at the Post Office am I telling any lie saying I got no word or answer at all.... It's long since I saw him, but it is the way he used to be, his eyes on kippeens and some way suspicious in his heart; a dark weighty tempered man.

_Sibby:_ A person to be crabbed and he young, it is not likely he will grow kind at the latter end.

_Tommy Nally:_ That is no less than true now. There are crabbed people and suspicious people to be met with in every place. It is much that I got a pa.s.s from the Workhouse this day, the Master making sure when I asked it that I had in my pocket the means of getting drink.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ It would maybe be best to go join you in the Workhouse, Tommy Nally, when I am out of this, than to go walking the world from end to end.

_Tommy Nally:_ Ah, don't be saying that, ma'am; sure you couldn't be happy within those walls if you had the whole world. Clean outside, but very hard within. No rank but all mixed together, the good, the middling and the bad, the well reared and the rough.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Sure I'm not asking to go in it. You could never be as stiff in any place as in any sort of little cabin of your own.

_Tommy Nally:_ The tea boiled in a boiler, you should close your eyes drinking it, and ne'er a bit of sugar hardly in it at all. And our curses on them that boil the eggs too hard! What use is an egg that is hard to any person on earth? And as to the dinner, what way would a tasty person eat it not having a knife or a fork?

_Mrs. Broderick:_ That I may live to be in no one's way, but to have some little corner of my own!

_Tommy Nally:_ And to come to your end in it, ma'am! If you were the Lady Mayor herself you'd be brought out to the deadhouse if it was ten o'clock at night, and not a wash unless it was just a Scotch lick, and n.o.body to wake you at all!

_Mrs. Broderick:_ I will not go in it! I would sooner make any shift and die by the side of the wall. Sure heaven is the best place, heaven and this world we're in now!

_Sibby:_ Don't be giving up now, ma'am. Here is Mr. Nestor coming, and if any one will give you an advice he is the one will do it. Why wouldn't he, he being, as he is, an educated man, and such a great one to be reading books.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ So he is too, and keeps it in his mind after. It's a wonder to me a man that does be reading to keep any memory at all.

_Nally:_ It's easy for him to carry things light, and his pension paid regular at springtime and harvest.

(_Nestor comes in reading "t.i.t-Bits."_)

_Nestor:_ There was a servant girl in Austria cut off her finger slicing cabbage....

_All:_ The poor thing!

_Nestor:_ And her master stuck it on again with glue. That now was a very foolish thing to do. What use would a finger be stuck with glue that might melt off at any time, and she to be stirring the pot?

_Sibby:_ That is true indeed.

_Nestor:_ Now, if I myself had been there, it is what I would have advised....

_Sibby:_ That's what I was saying, Mr. Nestor. It is you are the grand adviser. What now will you say to poor Mrs. Broderick that has a summons out against her this day for up to ten pounds?

_Nestor:_ It is what I am often saying, it is a very foolish thing to be getting into debt.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Sure what way could I help it? It's a very done-up town to be striving to make a living in.

_Nestor:_ It would be a right thing to be showing a good example.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ They would want that indeed. There are more die with debts on them in this place than die free from debt.

_Nestor:_ Many a poor soul has had to suffer from the weight of the debts on him, finding no rest or peace after death.

_Sibby:_ The Magistrates are gone into the Courthouse, Mrs. Broderick.

Why now wouldn't you go up to the bank and ask would the manager advance you a loan?

_Mrs. Broderick:_ It is likely he would not do it. But maybe it's as good for me go as to be sitting here waiting for the end.

(_Puts on hat and shawl._)

_Nestor:_ I now will take charge of the shop for you, Mrs. Broderick.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ It's little call there'll be to it. The time a person is sunk that's the time the custom will go from her. (_She goes out._)

_Nally:_ I'll be taking a ramble into the Court to see what are the lads doing. (_Goes out._)

_Sibby:_ (_Following them._) I might chance some customers there myself.

(_Goes out calling-oranges, good oranges._)

_Nestor:_ (_Taking a paper from his pocket, sitting down, and beginning to read._) "Romantic elopement in high life. A young lady at Aberdeen, Missouri, U.S.A., having been left by her father an immense fortune...."

(_Stops to wipe his spectacles, puts them on again and looks for place, which he has lost. c.o.o.ney puts his head in at door and draws it out again._)

_Nestor:_ Come in, come in!

_c.o.o.ney:_ (_Coming in cautiously and looking round._) Whose house now might this be?

_Nestor:_ To the Widow Broderick it belongs. She is out in the town presently.

_c.o.o.ney:_ I saw her name up over the door.

_Nestor:_ On business of her own she is gone. It is I am minding the place for her.

_c.o.o.ney:_ So I see. I suppose now you have good cause to be minding it?

_Nestor:_ It would be a pity any of her goods to go to loss.

_c.o.o.ney:_ I suppose so. Is it to auction them you will or to sell them in bulk?

_Nestor:_ Not at all. I can sell you any article you will require.

_c.o.o.ney:_ It would be no profit to herself now, I suppose, if you did?