Seven Short Plays Part 26

_Nestor:_ She came in at the door and I striving to put them into the book.

_c.o.o.ney:_ Look are they in it now, and I will say he is not tricky, but honest.

_Nestor:_ You needn't be looking....

_Mrs. Broderick:_ (_Turning over the leaves._) Ne'er a thing at all in it but the things that will or will not happen, and the days of the changes of the moon.

_c.o.o.ney:_ (_Seizing and shaking it._) Look at that now! (_To Nestor._) Will you believe me now telling you that you are a rogue?

_Nestor:_ Will you listen to me, ma'am....

_c.o.o.ney:_ No, but listen to myself. I brought the money to you.

_Nestor:_ If he did he wouldn't trust you with it, ma'am.

_c.o.o.ney:_ I intended it for your relief.

_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!

_c.o.o.ney:_ 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 c.o.o.ney to be pa.s.sing himself off as a mine-owner, and I myself being the way I am!

_c.o.o.ney:_ 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! (_c.o.o.ney indignantly flings away nest._) Searching out jackdaws and his sister without the price of a needle in the house! I tell you, Michael c.o.o.ney, it is yourself will be wandering after your burying, naked and peris.h.i.+ng, 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?

_c.o.o.ney:_ 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._)

_c.o.o.ney:_ 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?

_Nally:_ It was Mr. Nestor gave them to me.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Do you hear what he says, Joseph Nestor? What call have you to be giving a present of my bird?

_Nestor:_ And wasn't I after buying it from you?

_Mrs. Broderick:_ If you were it was not for yourself you bought it, but for the poor man in South Africa you bought it, and you defrauding him now, giving it away to a man has no claim to it at all. Well, now, isn't it hard for any man to find a person he can trust?

_Nestor:_ Didn't you hear me saying I bought it for no person at all?

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Give it up now, Tommy Nally, or I'll have you in gaol on the head of it.

_Nally:_ Oh, you wouldn't do such a thing, ma'am, I am sure!

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Indeed and I will, and have you on the treadmill for a thief.

_Nally:_ Oh, oh, oh, look now, Mr. Nestor, the way you have made me a thief and to be lodged in the gaol!

_Nestor:_ I wish to G.o.d you were lodged in it, and we would have less annoyance in this place!

_Nally:_ Oh, that is a terrible thing for you to be saying! Sure the poorhouse itself is better than the gaol! The nuns preparing you for heaven and the Ma.s.s every morning of your life....

_Nestor:_ If you go on with your talk and your arguments it's to gaol you will surely go.

_Nally:_ Milk of a Wednesday and a Friday, the potatoes steamed very good.... It's the skins of the potatoes they were telling me you do have to be eating in the gaol. It is what I am thinking, Mr. Nestor, that bird will lie heavy on you at the last!

_Nestor:_ (_Seizing cage and letting the bird out of the door._) Bad cess and a bad end to it, and that I may never see it or hear of it again!

_Mrs. Broderick:_ Look what he is after doing! Get it back for me!

Give it here into my hands I say! Why wouldn't I sell it secondly to the buyer and he to be coming to the door? It is in my own pocket I will keep the price of it that time!

_Nally:_ It would have been as good you to have left it with me as to be sending itself and the worth of it up into the skies!