MRS. DEEGAN. Patrick dear, Jim’s in the bar. Won’t you let me stay and hear what you’re going to do? PATRICK. Aye, certainly, Janey.... Heth, I don’t know who has a better right to hear the outs and ins of it than my own Janey. [_MRS. DEEGAN sits._] Now, Paul, you’re the man I want to hear. What’s your opinion of the whole tragedy? PAUL. Well, in the first place, I think your father--God forgive him--has treated his fine family worse than the mud on the road. Four sons and two daughters banished, the boy Dan about to be pushed out with the grey ribs in his hair, and yourself a cottier with no more fixity of tenure than one of Clanricarde’s tenants in the evil days. PATRICK [_grabs MRS. DEEGAN_]. D’ye hear that? D’ye hear what a smart man that has paraded the world says? Is them my own words a-fifty times over? MRS. DEEGAN. Oh, indeed, many a time you said that, Patrick. PATRICK. Purceed, Paul. PAUL. And the worst--the saddest feature of all--James Deegan is an able man. PATRICK. Able! A man that shook hands with Parnell himself. A man that addressed the gowned judges in the Four Courts of Dublin. Aye, by Mozes, he’s an able man! PAUL. But, like every great man of ancient or modern times, James Deegan has made a mess in the last lap. PATRICK. Aye, look at ould Gladstone, and Parnell himself. PAUL. I almost despair of my own sex when I see James Deegan--a white-haired man, as grave and solemn as his own memorial--making love on his two knees to an ould washed-out Yankee cook. PATRICK. By Mozes, it’s no wonder you despair. MRS. DEEGAN. Now you’ll blether on till he comes in. Then you’ll have less to say. PAUL. The lady is right. He’ll be in soon, for we passed him and his fiancée in the trap within half a mile of town. Myself and Dan were in the creamery-waggon, and we covered up with empty sacks that he wouldn’t see us. MRS. DEEGAN. In God’s name, will Daisy Mullan take him? PAUL. Would a duck swallow a dew-worm? MRS. DEEGAN. Has she property in America? PAUL. I don’t know about the property, but she has more deeds and documents in her vanity-bag than would do the Congested Districts Boord.... And she’ll have more before night comes, for he’ll sign the farm over to her this day in front of an attorney.... PATRICK. Oh, my head, my head! [_Holds his head._] By Mozes, I’m wake! MRS. DEEGAN. Why didn’t you take her yourself, Dan, if she wants a man? PAUL. Poor Dan has his own troubles.... Isn’t he pledged to Rose M’Gothigan? PATRICK. What! Pledged to who? PAUL. Keep cool now, for pity’s sake.... How could Dan be wise and his father a fool? He’d the misfortune to speak to Rose, and she consented....