MRS. FENNELL (to Phelan Duffy) Wisha, bad luck to your impudence to call my husband a bla’gard.  A dacent man that never went to the likes of you or any one else for anything.

MR. O’CROWLEY
Order, order.

MRS. FENNELL ’Tis only the likes of lawyers that have the insolence to insult dacent people.  Sure when they aren’t ignorant they’re consated, and their wives and daughters are no better than themselves.

MR. O’CROWLEY Order, order.  Unless you behave yourself, you must be placed under arrest.

MRS. FENNELL Sure, you don’t think I can stand here with a tongue in me head and listen to me husband being insulted, do you?

PETER DWYER
Order, order, Mrs. Fennell, please.

[She attempts to speak again, and the sergeant places his hand over her mouth.  She resents this action, and in a struggle which ensues the sergeant falls to the floor.  He is helped to his feet by Mrs. Fennell, and both look at each other in a scornful way.

SERGEANT HEALY (to Mrs. Fennell)
’Tis a good job for you that you’re not Mrs. Healy.

MRS. FENNELL
And ’tis a blessing for you that you’re not Mr. Fennell.

MR. O’CROWLEY
Order, order.  This conduct is scandalous, Mrs. Fennell,
and you must keep quiet.

MR. FENNELL
You might as well be asking a whale to whistle “The
Last Rose of Summer” or asking the Kaiser to become
a Trappist monk.

PETER DWYER
Order, order.  Now please, Mrs. Fennell, come forward
and give your evidence.

MRS. FENNELL All I have to say is that my husband got the delirium tramens from drinking poteen and broke every bit of furniture in the house, an’ he might have killed myself.

MR. FENNELL (very disgusted)
I wish I knew how.

MRS. FENNELL (continuing) Only for having the good sense of rushing to the front door and shouting for the police.  I’m an orphan, your Worship, and that’s why I’m here to seek protection from the court.  All the same, I haven’t a word to say to my husband, the cowardly ruffian, only for his love of poteen, bad temper, and contrary ways.

MR. O’CROWLEY
That will do, Mrs. Fennell.

MRS. FENNELL
Thanks, your Worship.

SERGEANT HEALY (takes out his notebook.  A day pipe, box of snuff, and handkerchief fall to the floor.  The snuff falls on the handkerchief.  He replaces the snuff box and the pipe in his pocket, and wipes his face with the snuffy handkerchief.  He then opens his notebook for reference and begins) On the night of December third sneezes and says: God bless us!) I was on me rounds doin’ beat duty in Market Square in the town of Ballybraggan (Sneezes)—­God bless us!—­and all of a sudden without a moment’s notice, I was disturbed from me reverie of pious thought, be a great disturbance like the falling of porter barrels from the top floor of a brewery, and without saying