“I’m surprised at you, Mrs. Kearney,”
said Mr. Holohan. “I never thought you
would treat us this way.”
“And what way did you treat me?” asked
Mrs. Kearney.
Her face was inundated with an angry colour and she
looked as if she would attack someone with her hands.
“I’m asking for my rights.” she
said.
You might have some sense of decency,” said
Mr. Holohan.
“Might I, indeed?... And when I ask when
my daughter is going to be paid I can’t get
a civil answer.”
She tossed her head and assumed a haughty voice:
“You must speak to the secretary. It’s
not my business. I’m a great fellow fol-the-diddle-I-do.”
“I thought you were a lady,” said Mr.
Holohan, walking away from her abruptly.
After that Mrs. Kearney’s conduct was condemned
on all hands: everyone approved of what the committee
had done. She stood at the door, haggard with
rage, arguing with her husband and daughter, gesticulating
with them. She waited until it was time for the
second part to begin in the hope that the secretaries
would approach her. But Miss Healy had kindly
consented to play one or two accompaniments.
Mrs. Kearney had to stand aside to allow the baritone
and his accompanist to pass up to the platform.
She stood still for an instant like an angry stone
image and, when the first notes of the song struck
her ear, she caught up her daughter’s cloak
and said to her husband:
“Get a cab!”
He went out at once. Mrs. Kearney wrapped the
cloak round her daughter and followed him. As
she passed through the doorway she stopped and glared
into Mr. Holohan’s face.
“I’m not done with you yet,” she
said.
“But I’m done with you,” said Mr.
Holohan.
Kathleen followed her mother meekly. Mr. Holohan
began to pace up and down the room, in order to cool
himself for he his skin on fire.
“That’s a nice lady!” he said.
“O, she’s a nice lady!”
You did the proper thing, Holohan,” said Mr.
O’Madden Burke, poised upon his umbrella in
approval.
Two gentlemen who were in the lavatory at
the time tried to lift him up: but he was quite
helpless. He lay curled up at the foot of the
stairs down which he had fallen. They succeeded
in turning him over. His hat had rolled a few
yards away and his clothes were smeared with the filth
and ooze of the floor on which he had lain, face downwards.
His eyes were closed and he breathed with a grunting
noise. A thin stream of blood trickled from the
corner of his mouth.
These two gentlemen and one of the curates carried
him up the stairs and laid him down again on the floor
of the bar. In two minutes he was surrounded
by a ring of men. The manager of the bar asked
everyone who he was and who was with him. No one
knew who he was but one of the curates said he had
served the gentleman with a small rum.
