Broadbent.  I was just about to ring for tea when you came.  Sit down, Mr Haffigan.

Tim.  Tay is a good dhrink if your nerves can stand it.  Mine can’t.

Haffigan sits down at the writing table, with his back to the filing cabinet.  Broadbent sits opposite him.  Hodson enters emptyhanded; takes two glasses, a siphon, and a tantalus from the cupboard; places them before Broadbent on the writing table; looks ruthlessly at Haffigan, who cannot meet his eye; and retires.

Broadbent.  Try a whisky and soda.

Tim [sobered].  There you touch the national wakeness, sir. [Piously] Not that I share it meself.  I’ve seen too much of the mischief of it.

Broadbent [pouring the whisky].  Say when.

Tim.  Not too sthrong. [Broadbent stops and looks enquiringly at him].  Say half-an-half. [Broadbent, somewhat startled by this demand, pours a little more, and again stops and looks].  Just a dhrain more:  the lower half o the tumbler doesn’t hold a fair half.  Thankya.

Broadbent [laughing].  You Irishmen certainly do know how to drink. [Pouring some whisky for himself] Now that’s my poor English idea of a whisky and soda.

Tim.  An a very good idea it is too.  Dhrink is the curse o me unhappy counthry.  I take it meself because I’ve a wake heart and a poor digestion; but in principle I’m a teetoatler.

Broadbent [suddenly solemn and strenuous].  So am I, of course.  I’m a Local Optionist to the backbone.  You have no idea, Mr Haffigan, of the ruin that is wrought in this country by the unholy alliance of the publicans, the bishops, the Tories, and The Times.  We must close the public-houses at all costs [he drinks].

Tim.  Sure I know.  It’s awful [he drinks].  I see you’re a good Liberal like meself, sir.

Broadbent.  I am a lover of liberty, like every true Englishman, Mr Haffigan.  My name is Broadbent.  If my name were Breitstein, and I had a hooked nose and a house in Park Lane, I should carry a Union Jack handkerchief and a penny trumpet, and tax the food of the people to support the Navy League, and clamor for the destruction of the last remnants of national liberty—­

Tim.  Not another word.  Shake hands.

Broadbent.  But I should like to explain—­

Tim.  Sure I know every word you’re goin to say before yev said it.  I know the sort o man yar.  An so you’re thinkin o comin to Ireland for a bit?

Broadbent.  Where else can I go?  I am an Englishman and a Liberal; and now that South Africa has been enslaved and destroyed, there is no country left to me to take an interest in but Ireland.  Mind:  I don’t say that an Englishman has not other duties.  He has a duty to Finland and a duty to Macedonia.  But what sane man can deny that an Englishman’s first duty is his duty to Ireland?  Unfortunately, we have politicians here more unscrupulous than Bobrikoff, more bloodthirsty than Abdul the Damned; and it is under their heel that Ireland is now writhing.