_Cooney:_ (_Coming in cautiously and looking round._) Whose house now might this be? _Nestor:_ To the Widow Broderick it belongs. She is out in the town presently. _Cooney:_ I saw her name up over the door. _Nestor:_ On business of her own she is gone. It is I am minding the place for her. _Cooney:_ So I see. I suppose now you have good cause to be minding it? _Nestor:_ It would be a pity any of her goods to go to loss. _Cooney:_ I suppose so. Is it to auction them you will or to sell them in bulk? _Nestor:_ Not at all. I can sell you any article you will require. _Cooney:_ It would be no profit to herself now, I suppose, if you did? _Nestor:_ What do you mean saying that? Do you think I would defraud her from her due in anything I would sell for her at all? _Cooney:_ You are not the bailiff so? _Nestor:_ Not at all. I wonder any person to take me for a bailiff! _Cooney:_ You are maybe one of the creditors? _Nestor:_ I am not. I am not a man to have a debt upon me to any person on earth. _Cooney:_ I wonder what it is you are at so, if you have no claim on the goods. Is it any harm now to ask what’s this your name is? _Nestor:_ One Joseph Nestor I am, there are few in the district but know me. Indeed they all have a great opinion of me. Travelled I did in the army, and attended school and I young, and slept in the one bed with two boys that were learning Greek. _Cooney:_ What way now can I be rightly sure that you are Joseph Nestor? _Nestor:_ (_Pulling out envelope._) There is my pension docket. You will maybe believe that. _Cooney:_ (_Examining it._) I suppose you may be him so. I saw your name often before this. _Nestor:_ Did you now? I suppose it may have travelled a good distance. _Cooney:_ It travelled as far as myself anyway at the bottom of letters that were written asking relief for the owner of this house. _Nestor:_ I suppose you are her brother so, Michael Cooney? _Cooney:_ If I am, there are some questions that I want to put and to get answers to before my mind will be satisfied. Tell me this now. Is it a fact Mary Broderick to be living at all? _Nestor:_ What would make you think her not to be living and she sending letters to you through the post? _Cooney:_ I was saying to myself with myself, there was maybe some other one personating her and asking me to send relief for their own ends. _Nestor:_ I am in no want of any relief. That is a queer thing to say and a very queer thing. There are many worse off than myself, the Lord be praised! _Cooney:_ Don’t be so quick now starting up to take offence. It is hard to believe the half the things you hear or that will be told to you. _Nestor:_ That may be so indeed; unless it is things that would be printed on the papers. But I would think you might trust one of your own blood.