_Paul Ruttledge._ When I hear these people talking I always hear some organized or vested interest chirp or quack, as it does in the newspapers. I would like to have great iron claws, and to put them about the pillars, and to pull and pull till everything fell into pieces.... Sometimes I dream I am pulling down my own house, and sometimes it is the whole world that I am pulling down.... When everything was pulled down we would have more room to get drunk in, to drink contentedly out of the cup of life, out of the drunken cup of life. He decides to give up his position and wealth and cast his lot in with the tinkers--an element we in America know as "hoboes," men who tramp the highways making their living as they go about, mending kettles and pots, earning an honest penny without obligation or responsibility to anyone. _Paul Ruttledge_ longs for the freedom of the road,--to sleep under the open sky, to count the stars, to be free. He throws off all artificial restraint and is received with open arms by the tinkers. To identify himself more closely with their life, he marries a tinker's daughter--not according to the rites of State or Church, but in true tinker fashion--in freedom--bound only by the promise to be faithful and "not hurt each other." In honor of the occasion, _Paul_ tenders to his comrades and the people of the neighborhood a grand feast, full of the spirit of life's joy,--an outpouring of gladness that lasts a whole week. _Paul's_ brother, his friends, and the authorities are incensed over the carousal. They demand that he terminate the "drunken orgy." _Mr. Joyce._ This is a disgraceful business, Paul; the whole countryside is demoralized. There is not a man who has come to sensible years who is not drunk. _Mr. Dowler._ This is a flagrant violation of all propriety. Society is shaken to its roots. My own servants have been led astray by the free drinks that are being given in the village. My butler, who has been with me for seven years, has not been seen for the last two days. _Mr. Algie._ I endorse his sentiments completely. There has not been a stroke of work done for the last week. The hay is lying in ridges where it has been cut, there is not a man to be found to water the cattle. It is impossible to get as much as a horse shod in the village. _Paul Ruttledge._ I think _you_ have something to say, Colonel Lawley? _Colonel Lawley._ I have undoubtedly. I want to know when law and order are to be reëstablished. The police have been quite unable to cope with the disorder. Some of them have themselves got drunk. If my advice had been taken the military would have been called in. _Mr. Green._ The military are not indispensable on occasions like the present. There are plenty of police coming now. We have wired to Dublin for them, they will be here by the four o'clock train.