AUNT JUDY. Ah galong! How can you like what's not natural? I hope you slept well. NORA. Did anything wake yup with a thump at three o'clock? I thought the house was falling. But then I'm a very light sleeper. LARRY. I seem to recollect that one of the legs of the sofa in the parlor had a way of coming out unexpectedly eighteen years ago. Was that it, Tom? BROADBENT [hastily]. Oh, it doesn't matter: I was not hurt--at least--er-- AUNT JUDY. Oh now what a shame! An I told Patsy Farrll to put a nail in it. BROADBENT. He did, Miss Doyle. There was a nail, certainly. AUNT JUDY. Dear oh dear! An oldish peasant farmer, small, leathery, peat faced, with a deep voice and a surliness that is meant to be aggressive, and is in effect pathetic--the voice of a man of hard life and many sorrows--comes in at the gate. He is old enough to have perhaps worn a long tailed frieze coat and knee breeches in his time; but now he is dressed respectably in a black frock coat, tall hat, and pollard colored trousers; and his face is as clean as washing can make it, though that is not saying much, as the habit is recently acquired and not yet congenial. THE NEW-COMER [at the gate]. God save all here! [He comes a little way into the garden]. LARRY [patronizingly, speaking across the garden to him]. Is that yourself, Mat Haffigan? Do you remember me? MATTHEW [intentionally rude and blunt]. No. Who are you? NORA. Oh, I'm sure you remember him, Mr Haffigan. MATTHEW [grudgingly admitting it]. I suppose he'll be young Larry Doyle that was. LARRY. Yes. MATTHEW [to Larry]. I hear you done well in America. LARRY. Fairly well. MATTHEW. I suppose you saw me brother Andy out dhere. LARRY. No. It's such a big place that looking for a man there is like looking for a needle in a bundle of hay. They tell me he's a great man out there. MATTHEW. So he is, God be praised. Where's your father? AUNT JUDY. He's inside, in the office, Mr Haffigan, with Barney Doarn n Father Dempsey. Matthew, without wasting further words on the company, goes curtly into the house. LARRY [staring after him]. Is anything wrong with old Mat? NORA. No. He's the same as ever. Why? LARRY. He's not the same to me. He used to be very civil to Master Larry: a deal too civil, I used to think. Now he's as surly and stand-off as a bear. AUNT JUDY. Oh sure he's bought his farm in the Land Purchase. He's independent now. NORA. It's made a great change, Larry. You'd harly know the old tenants now. You'd think it was a liberty to speak t'dhem--some o dhem. [She goes to the table, and helps to take off the cloth, which she and Aunt Judy fold up between them]. AUNT JUDY. I wonder what he wants to see Corny for. He hasn't been here since he paid the last of his old rent; and then he as good as threw it in Corny's face, I thought.