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O’FLAHERTY

. Sure and she wouldn’t want to see a gentleman like you going to hell after she nursing your own son and bringing up my sister Annie on the bottle. That was how it was, sir. She’d rob you; and she’d lie to you; and she’d call down all the blessings of God on your head when she was selling you your own three geese that you thought had been ate by the fox the day after you’d finished fattening them, sir; and all the time you were like a bit of her own flesh and blood to her. Often has she said she’d live to see you a good Catholic yet, leading victorious armies against the English and wearing the collar of gold that Malachi won from the proud invader. Oh, she’s the romantic woman is my mother, and no mistake.

SIR PEARCE

[in great perturbation]. I really can’t believe this, O’Flaherty. I could have sworn your mother was as honest a woman as ever breathed.

O’FLAHERTY

. And so she is, sir. She’s as honest as the day.

SIR PEARCE

. Do you call it honest to steal my geese?

O’FLAHERTY

. She didn’t steal them, sir. It was me that stole them.

SIR PEARCE

. Oh! And why the devil did you steal them?

O’FLAHERTY

. Sure we needed them, sir. Often and often we had to sell our own geese to pay you the rent to satisfy your needs; and why shouldn’t we sell your geese to satisfy ours?

SIR PEARCE

. Well, damn me!

O’FLAHERTY

[sweetly]. Sure you had to get what you could out of us; and we had to get what we could out of you. God forgive us both!

SIR PEARCE

. Really, O’Flaherty, the war seems to have upset you a little.

O’FLAHERTY

. It’s set me thinking, sir; and I’m not used to it. It’s like the patriotism of the English. They never thought of being patriotic until the war broke out; and now the patriotism has took them so sudden and come so strange to them that they run about like frightened chickens, uttering all manner of nonsense. But please God they’ll forget all about it when the war’s over. They’re getting tired of it already.

SIR PEARCE

. No, no: it has uplifted us all in a wonderful way. The world will never be the same again, O’Flaherty. Not after a war like this.

O’FLAHERTY

. So they all say, sir. I see no great differ myself. It’s all the fright and the excitement; and when that quiets down they’ll go back to their natural divilment and be the same as ever. It’s like the vermin: it’ll wash off after a while.

SIR PEARCE

[rising and planting himself firmly behind the garden seat]. Well, the long and the short of it is, O’Flaherty, I must decline to be a party to any attempt to deceive your mother. I thoroughly disapprove of this feeling against the English, especially at a moment like the present. Even if your mother’s political sympathies are really what you represent them to be, I should think that her gratitude to Gladstone ought to cure her of such disloyal prejudices.

O’FLAHERTY

[over his shoulder]. She says Gladstone was an Irishman, Sir. What call would he have to meddle with Ireland as he did if he wasn’t?

SIR PEARCE

. What nonsense! Does she suppose Mr Asquith is an Irishman?

O’FLAHERTY

. She won’t give him any credit for Home Rule, Sir. She says Redmond made him do it. She says you told her so.

SIR PEARCE

[convicted out of his own mouth]. Well, I never meant her to take it up in that ridiculous way. [He moves to the end of the garden seat on O’Flaherty’s left.] I’ll give her a good talking to when she comes. I’m not going to stand any of her nonsense.