MICUS One would think be the way the police are talked about that they had charge of the whole Universe!

PADNA An’ who else has charge of it but themselves an’ the magistrates, or justices o’ the pace, as they’re called?

MICUS
They’re worse than the police.

PADNA
They’re as bad anyway, an’ that’s bad enough.

MICUS (scornfully)
Justices o’ the pace!

PADNA
Micus!

MICUS
What?

PADNA (thoughtfully)
There’s no justice in the world.

MICUS
Damn the bit!  Sure ‘tisn’t porter we should be drinkin’
a cold night like this!

PADNA (as he sips from pint)
’Tis well to have it these times.

MICUS
The world is goin’ to the dogs, I’m afraid.

PADNA
‘Tisn’t goin’ at all, but gone.

MICUS
An’ nobody seems to care.

PADNA Some pretend they do, like the preachers, but they’re paid for it.  I do be often wonderin’ after readin’ the newspapers if God has forgotten about the world altogether.

MICUS
I wouldn’t be surprised, for nothin’ seems to be right. 
There’s the police, for instance.  They can do what
they like, an’ we must do what we’re told, like childer.

PADNA
Isn’t the world a star, Micus?

MICUS (with pint to his mouth)
Of course it is.

PADNA
Then it must be the way that it got lost among all
the other stars one sees on a frosty night.

MICUS
Are there min in the other stars too?

PADNA
So I believe.

MICUS
That’s queer.

PADNA
Sure, everythin’ is queer.

MICUS If the min in the other stars are like the peelers, there won’t be much room in Hell after the good are taken to Heaven on the last day.

PADNA
The last day!  I don’t like to think about the last day.

MICUS
Why so?

PADNA
Well, ’tis terrible to think that we might be taken to
Heaven, (pauses) an’ our parents an’ childer might
be sent (points towards the floor) with the Protestants.

MICUS If the Protestants will be as well treated in the next world as they are in this, I wouldn’t mind goin’ with ’em meself.

PADNA
I wouldn’t like to be a Protestant after I’m dead, Micus.

MICUS (knocks with his pint on the table and Mrs. Cotter enters; he points to pints) The same again, Mrs. Cotter.

MRS. COTTER
Indeed, ye won’t get another drop.

MICUS
This will be our last, ma’am.  Don’t be hard on us. 
‘Tis only a night of our lives, an’ we’ll be all dead
one day.

MRS. COTTER (as she leaves the room with measures in hand) Ye ought to be ashamed o’ yerselves to be seen in a public house a night like this.

MICUS
We’re ashamed o’ nothin,’ ma’am.  We’re only ourselves
an’ care for nobody.