DEVLIN Now, no more old palaver, talk is cheap, but it takes money to buy whiskey.  Look as smart as you can (hands letter), and deliver this letter before it’s too late.  There’s nothin’ like doin’ things with despatch when you’re in a hurry.  Wait, your face is none too clean.  Where’s your handkerchief? (Hands him an old dirty handkerchief.  He drains the dregs of a pewter pint on the handkerchief, and wipes his face with it.  Then he looks at Falvey’s boots) Glory be to God! but you’re a very careless man!  When did you clean these boots last?

FALVEY Wisha, who could keep boots clean upon the dirty roads.

[Takes off his old hat and wipes his boots with it

DEVLIN That’s better.  Now take off that old tie, and I’ll give you mine.  But you must return it to me when you get the job.  It belonged to my grandfather, and it always brought luck to the family.

[They exchange ties, and Devlin’s toilet is completed by brushing the legs of his old trousers with a sweeping brush.

DEVLIN (looking at him approvingly) If you always kept yourself as respectable lookin’ as that, you would never want for work, I’m thinkin’.

FALVEY (looking at himself in an old mirror) There’s somethin’ in what you say.  Sure my mother always told me I was the best lookin’ in the family.

DEVLIN That may be, but your beauty isn’t of the fatal kind. (Shaking hands with him) Good luck now, and I’ll wait here until you’ll return.

FALVEY God bless you, God bless you, I’ll be back as soon as I can.

[Exit.

DEVLIN (knocks and orders another half of whiskey)
Another half one.  That letter took a lot out of me.

DRISCOLL Literature, they say, is always a great strain on a man’s vitality.  I was offered a job as proof reader on a newspaper one time, but my friends advised me not to take it.

DEVLIN Your friends were wise.  Stayin’ up at night is bad for any man.  ‘Tis hard enough to be up in the mornin’ without bein’ up at night as well.

DRISCOLL (places drink on table)
That’s true.

[Exit.  A man of about forty-five enters, with a pint of porter in his hand.  He sits near Devlin.

BARRY NAGLE
Good mornin’, stranger.

DEVLIN
Good mornin’.

NAGLE
’Tis a fine day for this time of year.

DEVLIN
This would be a fine day for any part of the year.

NAGLE
Fine weather is the least of the good things that the
poor is entitled to.

DEVLIN The poor have their wants, of course, but the rich, bad luck and misfortune to them one and all, have their troubles also, because they don’t know what they want, the discontented, lazy, good-for-nothin’ varmints.  May they all perish be their own folly before the world or their money comes to an end.

NAGLE
’Tis only the poor who knows how bad the rich are. 
And only the rich that can be hard on the poor.  Have
you a match, if you please?