Keegan.  Poor lost soul, so cunningly fenced in with invisible bars!

Larry.  Haffigan doesn’t matter much.  He’ll die presently.

Broadbent [shocked].  Oh come, Larry!  Don’t be unfeeling.  It’s hard on Haffigan.  It’s always hard on the inefficient.

Larry.  Pah! what does it matter where an old and broken man spends his last days, or whether he has a million at the bank or only the workhouse dole?  It’s the young men, the able men, that matter.  The real tragedy of Haffigan is the tragedy of his wasted youth, his stunted mind, his drudging over his clods and pigs until he has become a clod and a pig himself—­until the soul within him has smouldered into nothing but a dull temper that hurts himself and all around him.  I say let him die, and let us have no more of his like.  And let young Ireland take care that it doesn’t share his fate, instead of making another empty grievance of it.  Let your syndicate come—­

Broadbent.  Your syndicate too, old chap.  You have your bit of the stock.

Larry.  Yes, mine if you like.  Well, our syndicate has no conscience:  it has no more regard for your Haffigans and Doolans and Dorans than it has for a gang of Chinese coolies.  It will use your patriotic blatherskite and balderdash to get parliamentary powers over you as cynically as it would bait a mousetrap with toasted cheese.  It will plan, and organize, and find capital while you slave like bees for it and revenge yourselves by paying politicians and penny newspapers out of your small wages to write articles and report speeches against its wickedness and tyranny, and to crack up your own Irish heroism, just as Haffigan once paid a witch a penny to put a spell on Billy Byrne’s cow.  In the end it will grind the nonsense out of you, and grind strength and sense into you.

Broadbent [out of patience].  Why can’t you say a simple thing simply, Larry, without all that Irish exaggeration and talky-talky?  The syndicate is a perfectly respectable body of responsible men of good position.  We’ll take Ireland in hand, and by straightforward business habits teach it efficiency and self-help on sound Liberal principles.  You agree with me, Mr Keegan, don’t you?

Keegan.  Sir:  I may even vote for you.

Broadbent [sincerely moved, shaking his hand warmly].  You shall never regret it, Mr Keegan:  I give you my word for that.  I shall bring money here:  I shall raise wages:  I shall found public institutions, a library, a Polytechnic [undenominational, of course], a gymnasium, a cricket club, perhaps an art school.  I shall make a Garden city of Rosscullen:  the round tower shall be thoroughly repaired and restored.

Keegan.  And our place of torment shall be as clean and orderly as the cleanest and most orderly place I know in Ireland, which is our poetically named Mountjoy prison.  Well, perhaps I had better vote for an efficient devil that knows his own mind and his own business than for a foolish patriot who has no mind and no business.