CHRISTY
(without stirring) Is who not back yet?

TOURNOUR
The master I’m talking about.  I don’t know where he does be
going those evenings.

  He shovels coal into the stove.

CHRISTY
And what is it to you where he does be going?

TOURNOUR Don’t talk to me like that, young fellow.  You’re poorhouse rearing, even though you are a pet.  Will he be sitting up here to-night, do you know?

CHRISTY
What’s that to you whether he will or not?

TOURNOUR
If he’s sitting up late he’ll want more coal to his fire.

CHRISTY
Well, the abstracts will have to be finished to-night.

TOURNOUR
Then he will be staying up.  He goes out for a walk in the
evenings now, and I don’t know where he does be going.

CHRISTY
He goes out for a walk in the country. (Tournour makes a
leer of contempt) Do you never go for a walk in the country, Felix
Tournour?

TOURNOUR
They used to take me out for walks when I was a little
fellow, but they never got me out into the country since.

CHRISTY
I suppose, now that you’re in the porter’s lodge, you watch
every one that goes up and down the road?

TOURNOUR
It gratifies me to do so—­would you believe that now?

CHRISTY
You know a lot, Felix Tournour.

TOURNOUR
We’re told to advance in knowledge, young fellow.  How long
is Tom Muskerry the Master of Garrisowen Workhouse?

CHRISTY
Thirty years this spring.

TOURNOUR
Twenty-nine years.

CHRISTY
He’s here thirty years according to the books.

TOURNOUR
Twenty-nine years.

CHRISTY
Thirty years.

TOURNOUR Twenty-nine years.  I was born in the workhouse, and I mind when the Master came in to it.  Whist now, here he is, and time for him.

He falls into an officious manner.  He closes up the stove and puts bucket away.  Then he goes over to desk, and, with his foot on the rung of the office stool, he turns the gas on full.  Christy Clarke gets out of armchair, and begins to arrange the periodicals that are on wooden chair.  The corridor door opens.  The man who appears is not the Master, however.  He is the blind piper, Myles Gorman, who is dressed in the pauper garb.  Myles Gorman is a Gael of the West of Ireland, with a face full of intellectual vigour.  He is about sixty, and carries himself with energy.  His face is pale and he has a fringe of a white beard.  The eye-balls in his head are contracted, but it is evident he has some vestiges of sight.  Before the others are aware who he is, he has advanced into the room.  He stands there now turning the attentive face of the blind.

GORMAN
Mister Muskerry!  Are you there, Mister Muskerry?

TOURNOUR
What do you want, my oul’ fellow?

GORMAN (with a puzzled look) Well, now, I’ve a favour to ask of your honour.