MRS. FENNESSEY (opens, and holds the door ajar) There’s a gentleman wants to see you.

PATCHA Who is he?  What is he like, and where does he come from?

MRS. FENNESSEY How do I know where he comes from?  He wanted to know if Napoleon lived here and I told him there was no one livin’ here at present but one Patcha Cremin.  Sure, that’s who I mean, says he.  Are you Napoleon?

PATCHA
Yes, I’m Napoleon.

MRS. FENNESSEY
Glory be to the Lord!  What a purty name they got
for you!

PATCHA
Did he say who he was?

MRS. FENNESSEY
He said he was an old friend of yours.

PATCHA
I wonder can it be the Duke of Wellington?  Dannux
Touhy, I mean.

MRS. FENNESSEY
Touhy!  Touhy!  That’s the name.  Will I send him
up?

PATCHA
Do if you please, ma’am.

[Mrs. Fennessey leaves the room, and in a short time Dannux Touhy enters.

DANNUX (as he shakes hands with Patcha) Well, well!  ’Tis real glad that I am to see you.  Sure I didn’t expect to find my old friend Napoleon in the town of Ballinflask this blessed day.  And I’ve heard that Boulanger is here also.  Is that so?

PATCHA It is so, then.  And he’ll be as surprised as myself to find the Duke of Wellington here before him when he arrives.

DANNUX What makes you be in bed at this hour of the day?  Is it the way that you’re sick?

PATCHA
Not in the body, thank God, but in the mind and
heart.

DANNUX
And why don’t you get up and dress yourself, and
go for a good long country walk?

PATCHA
I can’t.

DANNUX
Why?

PATCHA Sit down and I’ll tell you. (Dannux sits on a chair) Last night as I was goin’ to sleep, a knock came to the door, and when I said:  “Who’s there?” a voice answered back and said:  “Boulanger.”  “Come in,” says I. And lo and behold, who should walk in the door but Nedsers Brophy, himself.  And of course, he had the usual poor mouth.  He couldn’t get a job in the town because he is such a poor mechanic no one would be bothered with him.

DANNUX
I’m not surprised at it.  Sure he was never more than
a botch at his best.

PATCHA Well, he said, he hadn’t a penny in his pocket, or the price of a night’s lodgin’; so I invited him to sleep with me in this bit of a bed.  And of course, he accepted.  The same man never refused anythin’ he could get for nothin’ in his life.

DANNUX
I know him of old, the good-for-nothin’ humbug.

PATCHA The bed as you can see isn’t very large, so when he turned in the middle of the night, I fell out on the floor, and when I turned he fell out.  And there we were, fallin’ in and fallin’ out like two drunken sailors all night long.  And when mornin’ came, every bone in my body was as sore as a carbuncle.

DANNUX And sure ’tis myself that didn’t close an eye or stretch my limbs upon a bed at all last night, or eat a bit for two long days, but kept walkin’ the roads until I struck this town at daybreak.