MRS. COTTER (turning round)
Well, this is the very last drink ye’ll get then.
[Exit.

PADNA
Women are all alike.

MICUS
They are, God forgive them.

PADNA
They must keep talkin’.

MICUS
An’ ’tis only a fool that ’ud try to prevent ’em.

MRS. COTTER (entering and placing measures on table)
Hurry up, now, an’ don’t have me at the next Petty
Sessions.
[Exit.

MICUS (after testing drink)
Nothin’ like a good pint o’ “Dundon’s.”

PADNA
’Tis great stuff.

MICUS
May the Lord spare them long, an’ they buildin’
houses for the poor an’ churches for God!

PADNA
An’ all out o’ the beer money?

MICUS
Of course.  What else could ye make money at in a
country like this?

PADNA
’Tis a thirsty climate!

MICUS
If all those who made money built houses for the poor
an’ gave employment, there ’ud soon be no poor at all.

PADNA You’re talkin’ what’s called socialism now, an’ that’s too delicate a plant, like Christianity, to thrive in a planet like this.  So I heard one o’ them preacher chaps sayin’ the other evenin’.

MICUS Well, be all accounts, we’re no better off than those who heard St. Peter himself preachin’.  The poor still only get the promise of Heaven from the clergy.

PADNA
That’s all they’ll ever get.

MICUS
The world must surely be lost, Padna.

PADNA
Nothin’ surer!

MICUS
If God ever goes rummagin’ among the stars an’ finds
it again, there’ll be bad work, I’m thinkin’.

PADNA
I wonder will it be a great fire or another flood?

MICUS
Tis hard to tell!

[A loud knocking is heard at the door.

MRS. COTTER (from the shop)
Who’s there?

VOICE
Police.

PADNA
May ye freeze there!

MICUS
Or trip over the threshold and break ye’r neck!

MRS. COTTER (rushing into kitchen) Quick! quick! quick! (Points to a door) This way, boys!

[Micus and Padna enter a small room off the kitchen.  Mrs. Cotter locks the door and opens the street door for the policeman, the knocking getting louder meanwhile.

MRS. COTTER
Wait a minit!  Wait a minit!  I’m comin’, I’m comin’.

[Opens door.  Enter Head Constable Mulligan, R.I.C.

HEAD
You took a long time to open the door, ma’am.

MRS. COTTER I know I did, but it wasn’t me fault, Head.  I had the house locked up for the night, an’ couldn’t find where I left the kay.

HEAD ’Tis all right, ma’am.  I can lose things meself. (Looks carefully around) ’Tis a lonesome thing to see the house so empty.

MRS. COTTER
’Tis Sunday night, Head.

HEAD
Of course, of course!  All the same I’d prefer to see it
full—­of bona-fide travellers, I mean.