(Sings “The Bard of Armagh.")

  “Oh, list to the lay of a poor Irish harper,
  And scorn not the strains of his old withered hand,
  But remember the fingers could once move sharper
  To raise the merry strains of his dear native land;
  It was long before the shamrock our dear isle’s loved emblem. 
  Was crushed in its beauty ’neath the Saxon Lion’s paw
  I was called by the colleens of the village and valley
  Bold Phelim Brady, the bard of Armagh.”

Rock:  Bad management!  Look what I brought from the Fair through minding my own property—­L20 for a milch cow, and thirty for a score of lambs!

Mother:  L20 for a cow!  Isn’t that terrible money!

Conan:  Let you whist now!  You are putting a headache on me with all your little newses and country chat!

(Mother goes, the others are following.)

Rock:  (Turning from door.) It might be better for yourself, Conan Creevey, if you had minded business would bring profit to your hand in place of your foreign learning, that never put a penny piece in anyone’s pocket that ever I heard.  No earthly profit unless to addle the brain and leave the pocket empty.

Conan:  You think yourself a great sort!  Let me tell you that my learning has power to do more than that!

Rock:  It’s an empty mouth that has big talk.

Conan:  What would you say hearing I had power put in my hand that could change the entire world?  And that’s what you never will have power to do.

Rock:  What power is that?

Conan: 

  Aristotle in the hour
  He left Ireland left a power....

Rock:  Foolishness!  I never would believe in poetry or in dreams or images, but in ready money down. (Jingles bag.)

Conan:  I tell you you’ll see me getting the victory over all Ireland!

Rock:  You have but a cracked headpiece thinking that will come to you.

Conan:  I tell you it will!  No end at all in the world to what I am about to bring in!

Rock:  It’s easy praise yourself!

Conan:  And so I am praising myself, and so will you all be praising me when you will see all that I will do!

Rock:  It is what I think you got demented in the head and in the mind.

Conan:  It is soon the wheel will be turned and the whole of the nation will be changed for the best. (Sings.)

  “Dear Harp of my country, in darkness I found thee,
  The cold chain of silence had hung o’er thee long,
  When proudly, my own Irish Harp, I unbound thee,
  And gave all thy chords to light, freedom and song,
  The warm lay of love and the light note of gladness
  Have waken’d thy fondest, thy liveliest thrill;
  But so oft hast thou echo’d the deep sigh of sadness,
  That ev’n in thy mirth it will steal from thee still.”