Contemporary One-Act Plays Part 26

FARDY. I will, ma'am. [_Takes bag and goes out._

MRS. DELANE. [_Coming out with a telegram in her hand._] n.o.body here?

[_Looks round and calls cautiously._] Mr. Quirke! Mr. Quirke! James Quirke!

MR. QUIRKE. [_Looking out of his upper window, with soap-suddy face._]

What is it, Mrs. Delane?

MRS. DELANE. [_Beckoning._] Come down here till I tell you.

MR. QUIRKE. I cannot do that. I'm not fully shaved.

MRS. DELANE. You'd come if you knew the news I have.

MR. QUIRKE. Tell it to me now. I'm not so supple as I was.

MRS. DELANE. Whisper now, have you an enemy in any place?

MR. QUIRKE. It's likely I may have. A man in business----

MRS. DELANE. I was thinking you had one.

MR. QUIRKE. Why would you think that at this time more than any other time?

MRS. DELANE. If you could know what is in this envelope you would know that, James Quirke.

MR. QUIRKE. Is that so? And what, now, is there in it?

MRS. DELANE. Who do you think now is it addressed to?

MR. QUIRKE. How would I know that, and I not seeing it?

MRS. DELANE. That is true. Well, it is a message from Dublin Castle to the sergeant of police!

MR. QUIRKE. To Sergeant Carden, is it?

MRS. DELANE. It is. And it concerns yourself.

MR. QUIRKE. Myself, is it? What accusation can they be bringing against me? I'm a peaceable man.

MRS. DELANE. Wait till you hear.

MR. QUIRKE. Maybe they think I was in that moonlighting case----

MRS. DELANE. That is not it----

MR. QUIRKE. I was not in it--I was but in the neighboring field--cutting up a dead cow, that those never had a hand in----

MRS. DELANE. You're out of it----

MR. QUIRKE. They had their faces blackened. There is no man can say I recognized them.

MRS. DELANE. That's not what they're saying----

MR. QUIRKE. I'll swear I did not hear their voices or know them if I did hear them.

MRS. DELANE. I tell you it has nothing to do with that. It might be better for you if it had.

MR. QUIRKE. What is it, so?

MRS. DELANE. It is an order to the sergeant, bidding him immediately to seize all suspicious meat in your house. There is an officer coming down. There are complaints from the Shannon Fort Barracks.

MR. QUIRKE. I'll engage it was that pork.

MRS. DELANE. What ailed it for them to find fault?

MR. QUIRKE. People are so hard to please nowadays, and I recommended them to salt it.

MRS. DELANE. They had a right to have minded your advice.

MR. QUIRKE. There was nothing on that pig at all but that it went mad on poor O'Grady that owned it.

MRS. DELANE. So I heard, and went killing all before it.

MR. QUIRKE. Sure it's only in the brain madness can be. I heard the doctor saying that.

MRS. DELANE. He should know.

MR. QUIRKE. I give you my word I cut the head off it. I went to the loss of it, throwing it to the eels in the river. If they had salted the meat, as I advised them, what harm would it have done to any person on earth?

MRS. DELANE. I hope no harm will come on poor Mrs. Quirke and the family.

MR. QUIRKE. Maybe it wasn't that but some other thing----

MRS. DELANE. Here is Fardy. I must send the message to the sergeant.

Well, Mr. Quirke, I'm glad I had the time to give you a warning.

MR. QUIRKE. I'm obliged to you, indeed. You were always very neighborly, Mrs. Delane. Don't be too quick now sending the message.

There is just one article I would like to put away out of the house before the sergeant will come.

[_Enter_ FARDY.

MRS. DELANE. Here now, Fardy--that's not the way you're going to the barracks. Any one would think you were scaring birds yet. Put on your uniform.

[FARDY _goes into office_.

MRS. DELANE. You have this message to bring to the sergeant of police.

Get your cap now; it's under the counter.