Keegan.  What were you doin there, Patsy, listnin?  Were you spyin on me?

Patsy.  No, Fadher:  on me oath an soul I wasn’t:  I was waitn to meet Masther Larry n carry his luggage from the car; n I fell asleep on the grass; n you woke me talkin to the grasshopper; n I hard its wicked little voice.  Oh, d’ye think I’ll die before the year’s out, Fadher?

Keegan.  For shame, Patsy!  Is that your religion, to be afraid of a little deeshy grasshopper?  Suppose it was a divil, what call have you to fear it?  If I could ketch it, I’d make you take it home widja in your hat for a penance.

Patsy.  Sure, if you won’t let it harm me, I’m not afraid, your riverence. [He gets up, a little reassured.  He is a callow, flaxen polled, smoothfaced, downy chinned lad, fully grown but not yet fully filled out, with blue eyes and an instinctively acquired air of helplessness and silliness, indicating, not his real character, but a cunning developed by his constant dread of a hostile dominance, which he habitually tries to disarm and tempt into unmasking by pretending to be a much greater fool than he really is.  Englishmen think him half-witted, which is exactly what he intends them to think.  He is clad in corduroy trousers, unbuttoned waistcoat, and coarse blue striped shirt].

Keegan [admonitorily].  Patsy:  what did I tell you about callin me Father Keegan an your reverence?  What did Father Dempsey tell you about it?

Patsy.  Yis, Fadher.

Keegan.  Father!

Patsy [desperately].  Arra, hwat am I to call you?  Fadher Dempsey sez you’re not a priest; n we all know you’re not a man; n how do we know what ud happen to us if we showed any disrespect to you?  N sure they say wanse a priest always a priest.

Keegan [sternly].  It’s not for the like of you, Patsy, to go behind the instruction of your parish priest and set yourself up to judge whether your Church is right or wrong.

Patsy.  Sure I know that, sir.

Keegan.  The Church let me be its priest as long as it thought me fit for its work.  When it took away my papers it meant you to know that I was only a poor madman, unfit and unworthy to take charge of the souls of the people.

Patsy.  But wasn’t it only because you knew more Latn than Father Dempsey that he was jealous of you?

Keegan [scolding him to keep himself from smiling].  How dar you, Patsy Farrell, put your own wicked little spites and foolishnesses into the heart of your priest?  For two pins I’d tell him what you just said.

Patsy [coaxing] Sure you wouldn’t—­

Keegan.  Wouldn’t I?  God forgive you!  You’re little better than a heathen.

Patsy.  Deedn I am, Fadher:  it’s me bruddher the tinsmith in Dublin you’re thinkin of.  Sure he had to be a freethinker when he larnt a thrade and went to live in the town.