_Nestor:_ In dread he was you would go follow him to Limerick. _Mrs. Broderick:_ It is not likely I would be following the like of him to Limerick, a man that left me to the charity of strangers from Africa! _Cooney:_ I gave the money to him.... _Nestor:_ And I gave it to yourself paying for the jackdaw. Are you satisfied now, Mary Broderick? _Mrs. Broderick:_ Satisfied, is it? It would be a queer thing indeed I to be satisfied. My brother to be spending money on birds, and his sister with a summons on her head. Michael Cooney to be passing himself off as a mine-owner, and I myself being the way I am! _Cooney:_ What would I want doing that? I tell you I ask no birds, black, blue or white! _Mrs. Broderick:_ I wonder at you now saying that, and you with that clutch on your arm! (_Cooney indignantly flings away nest._) Searching out jackdaws and his sister without the price of a needle in the house! I tell you, Michael Cooney, it is yourself will be wandering after your burying, naked and perishing, through winds and through frosts, in satisfaction for the way you went wasting your money and your means on such vanities, and she that was reared on the one floor with you going knocking at the Workhouse door! What good will jackdaws be to you that time? _Cooney:_ It is what I would wish to know, what scheme are the whole of you at? It is long till I will trust any one but my own eyes again in the whole of the living world. (_She wipes her eyes indignantly. Tommy Nally rushes in the bird and cage still in his hands._) _Nally:_ Where is the bird buyer? It is here he is said to be. It is well for me get here the first. It is the whole of the town will be here within half an hour; they have put a great scatter on themselves hunting and searching in every place, but I am the first! _Nestor:_ What is it you are talking about? _Nally:_ Not a house in the whole street but is deserted. It is much if the Magistrates themselves didn’t quit the bench for the pursuit, the way Tim Ward quitted the place he had a right to be! _Nestor:_ It is some curse in the air, or some scourge? _Nally:_ Birds they are getting by the score! Old and young! Where is the bird-buyer? Who is it now will give me my price? (_He holds up the cage._) _Cooney:_ There is surely some root for all this. There must be some buyer after all. It’s to keep him to themselves they are wanting. (_Goes to door._) But I’ll get my own profit in spite of them. (_He goes outside door, looking up and down the street._) _Mrs. Broderick:_ Look at what Tommy Nally has. That’s my bird. _Nally:_ It is not, it’s my own! _Mrs. Broderick:_ That is my cage! _Nally:_ It is not, it is mine! _Mrs. Broderick:_ Wouldn’t I know my own cage and my own bird? Don’t be telling lies that way! _Nally:_ It is no lie I am telling. The bird and the cage were made a present to me. _Mrs. Broderick:_ Who would make a present to you of the things that belong to myself?