Civil engineers -- Drama; English drama (Comedy); Ireland -- Drama; Real estate development -- Drama
BROADBENT. You think every Englishwoman an angel. You really have
coarse tastes in that way, Larry. Miss Reilly is one of the finer
types: a type rare in England, except perhaps in the best of the
aristocracy.
LARRY. Aristocracy be blowed! Do you know what Nora eats?
BROADBENT. Eats! what do you mean?
LARRY. Breakfast: tea and bread-and-butter, with an occasional
rasher, and an egg on special occasions: say on her birthday.
Dinner in the middle of the day, one course and nothing else. In
the evening, tea and bread-and-butter again. You compare her with
your Englishwomen who wolf down from three to five meat meals a
day; and naturally you find her a sylph. The difference is not a
difference of type: it's the difference between the woman who
eats not wisely but too well, and the woman who eats not wisely
but too little.
BROADBENT [furious]. Larry: you--you--you disgust me. You are a
damned fool. [He sits down angrily on the rustic seat, which
sustains the shock with difficulty].
LARRY. Steady! stead-eee! [He laughs and seats himself on the
table].
Cornelius Doyle, Father Dempsey, Barney Doran, and Matthew
Haffigan come from the house. Doran is a stout bodied, short
armed, roundheaded, red-haired man on the verge of middle age, of
sanguine temperament, with an enormous capacity for derisive,
obscene, blasphemous, or merely cruel and senseless fun, and a
violent and impetuous intolerance of other temperaments and other
opinions, all this representing energy and capacity wasted and
demoralized by want of sufficient training and social pressure to
force it into beneficent activity and build a character with it;
for Barney is by no means either stupid or weak. He is recklessly
untidy as to his person; but the worst effects of his neglect are
mitigated by a powdering of flour and mill dust; and his
unbrushed clothes, made of a fashionable tailor's sackcloth, were
evidently chosen regardless of expense for the sake of their
appearance.
Matthew Haffigan, ill at ease, coasts the garden shyly on the
shrubbery side until he anchors near the basket, where he feels
least in the way. The priest comes to the table and slaps Larry
on the shoulder. Larry, turning quickly, and recognizing Father
Dempsey, alights from the table and shakes the priest's hand
warmly. Doran comes down the garden between Father Dempsey and
Matt; and Cornelius, on the other side of the table, turns to
Broadbent, who rises genially.
CORNELIUS. I think we all met las night.
DORAN. I hadn't that pleasure.
CORNELIUS. To be sure, Barney: I forgot. [To Broadbent,
introducing Barney] Mr Doran. He owns that fine mill you noticed
from the car.
BROADBENT [delighted with them all]. Most happy, Mr Doran. Very
pleased indeed.
Doran, not quite sure whether he is being courted or patronized,
nods independently.
DORAN. How's yourself, Larry?
LARRY. Finely, thank you. No need to ask you. [Doran grins; and
they shake hands].
CORNELIUS. Give Father Dempsey a chair, Larry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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