AUNT JUDY. Ah, you're never satisfied, Larry. [To Nora] Come on, alanna, an make the paste for the pie. We can leave them to their talk. They don't want us [she takes up the tray and goes into the house]. BROADBENT [rising and gallantly protesting] Oh, Miss Doyle! Really, really-- Nora, following Aunt Judy with the rolled-up cloth in her hands, looks at him and strikes him dumb. He watches her until she disappears; then comes to Larry and addresses him with sudden intensity. BROADBENT. Larry. LARRY. What is it? BROADBENT. I got drunk last night, and proposed to Miss Reilly. LARRY. You HWAT??? [He screams with laughter in the falsetto Irish register unused for that purpose in England]. BROADBENT. What are you laughing at? LARRY [stopping dead]. I don't know. That's the sort of thing an Irishman laughs at. Has she accepted you? BROADBENT. I shall never forget that with the chivalry of her nation, though I was utterly at her mercy, she refused me. LARRY. That was extremely improvident of her. [Beginning to reflect] But look here: when were you drunk? You were sober enough when you came back from the Round Tower with her. BROADBENT. No, Larry, I was drunk, I am sorry to say. I had two tumblers of punch. She had to lead me home. You must have noticed it. LARRY. I did not. BROADBENT. She did. LARRY. May I ask how long it took you to come to business? You can hardly have known her for more than a couple of hours. BROADBENT. I am afraid it was hardly a couple of minutes. She was not here when I arrived; and I saw her for the first time at the tower. LARRY. Well, you are a nice infant to be let loose in this country! Fancy the potcheen going to your head like that! BROADBENT. Not to my head, I think. I have no headache; and I could speak distinctly. No: potcheen goes to the heart, not to the head. What ought I to do? LARRY. Nothing. What need you do? BROADBENT. There is rather a delicate moral question involved. The point is, was I drunk enough not to be morally responsible for my proposal? Or was I sober enough to be bound to repeat it now that I am undoubtedly sober? LARRY. I should see a little more of her before deciding. BROADBENT. No, no. That would not be right. That would not be fair. I am either under a moral obligation or I am not. I wish I knew how drunk I was. LARRY. Well, you were evidently in a state of blithering sentimentality, anyhow. BROADBENT. That is true, Larry: I admit it. Her voice has a most extraordinary effect on me. That Irish voice! LARRY [sympathetically]. Yes, I know. When I first went to London I very nearly proposed to walk out with a waitress in an Aerated Bread shop because her Whitechapel accent was so distinguished, so quaintly touching, so pretty-- BROADBENT [angrily]. Miss Reilly is not a waitress, is she? LARRY. Oh, come! The waitress was a very nice girl.