Short Plays

know what you never seen as well as me that was dug into the continent of Europe for six months, and was buried in the earth of it three times with the shells bursting on the top of me? I tell you I know what I’m about. I have my own reasons for taking part in this great conflict. I’d be ashamed to stay at home and not fight when everybody else is fighting. Mrs. O’Flaherty If you wanted to fight, why couldn’t you fight in the German army? O’Flaherty Because they only get a penny a day. Mrs. O’Flaherty Well, and if they do itself, isn’t there the French army? O’Flaherty They only get a hapenny a day. Mrs. O’Flaherty Much dashed. Oh murder! They must be a mean lot, Dinny. O’Flaherty Sarcastic. Maybe you’d have me in the Turkish army, and worship the heathen Muhammad that put a corn in his ear and pretended it was a message from the heavens when the pigeon come to pick it out and eat it. I went where I could get the biggest allowance for you; and little thanks I get for it! Mrs. O’Flaherty Allowance, is it! Do you know what the thieving blackguards did on me? They came to me and they says, “Was your son a big eater?” they says. “Oh, he was that,” says I: “ten shillings a week wouldn’t keep him.” Sure I thought the more I said the more they’d give me. “Then,” says they, “that’s ten shillings a week off your allowance,” they says, “because you save that by the king feeding him.” “Indeed!” says I: “I suppose if I’d six sons, you’d stop three pound a week from me, and make out that I ought to pay you money instead of you paying me.” “There’s a fallacy in your argument,” they says. O’Flaherty A what? Mrs. O’Flaherty A fallacy: that’s the word he said. I says to him, “It’s a Pharisee I’m thinking you mean, sir; but you can keep your dirty money that your king grudges a poor old widow; and please God the English will be got yet for the deadly sin of oppressing the poor;” and with that I shut the door in his face. O’Flaherty Furious. Do you tell me they knocked ten shillings off you for my keep? Mrs. O’Flaherty Soothing him. No, darlint: they only knocked off half a crown. I put up with it because I’ve got the old age pension; and they know very well I’m only sixty-two; so I’ve the better of them by half a crown a week anyhow. O’Flaherty It’s a queer way of doing business. If they’d tell you straight out what they was going to give you, you wouldn’t mind; but if there was twenty ways of telling the truth and only one way of telling a lie, the Government would find it out. It’s in the nature of governments to tell lies. Teresa Driscoll, a parlor maid, comes from the house, Teresa You’re to come up to the drawing room to have your tea, Mrs. O’Flaherty. Mrs. O’Flaherty Mind you have a sup of good black tea for me in the kitchen afterwards, acushla. That washy drawing-room tea will give me the wind if I leave it on my stomach. She goes into the house, leaving the two young people alone together. O’Flaherty Is that yourself, Tessie? And how are you? Teresa Nicely, thank you. And how’s yourself? O’Flaherty Finely, thank God. He produces a gold chain. Look what I’ve brought you, Tessie. Teresa Shrinking. Sure I don’t like to touch it, Denny. Did you take it off a dead man? O’Flaherty No: I took it off a live one; and thankful he was to me to be alive and kept a prisoner in ease and comfort, and me left fighting in peril of my life. Teresa Taking it. Do you think it’s real gold, Denny? O’Flaherty It’s real German gold, anyhow. Teresa But German silver isn’t real, Denny. O’Flaherty His face darkening. Well, it’s the best the Bosh could do for me, anyhow. Teresa Do you think I might take it to the jeweller next market day and ask him? O’Flaherty Sulkily. You may take it to the divil if you like. Teresa You needn’t lose your temper about it. I only thought I’d like to know. The nice fool I’d look if I went about showing off a chain that turned out to be only brass! O’Flaherty I think you might say Thank you. Teresa Do you? I think you might have said something more to me than “Is that yourself?” You couldn’t say less to the postman. O’Flaherty His brow clearing. Oh, is that what’s the matter? Here! come and take the taste of the brass out of my mouth. He seizes her and kisses her. Teresa, without losing her Irish dignity, takes the kiss as appreciatively as a connoisseur might take a glass of wine, and sits down with him on the garden seat. Teresa As he squeezes her waist. Thank God the priest can’t see us here! O’Flaherty It’s little they care for priests in France, alanna. Teresa And what had the queen on her, Denny, when she spoke to you in the palace? O’Flaherty She had a bonnet on without any strings to it. And she had a plakeen of embroidery down her bosom. And she had her waist where it used to be, and not where the other ladies had it. And she had little brooches in her ears, though she hadn’t half the jewelry of Mrs. Sullivan that keeps the popshop in Drumpogue. And she dresses her hair down over her forehead, in a fringe like. And she has an Irish look about her eyebrows. And she didn’t know what to say to me, poor woman! and I didn’t know what to say to her, God help me! Teresa You’ll have a pension now with the Cross, won’t you, Denny? O’Flaherty Sixpence three farthings a day. Teresa That isn’t much. O’Flaherty I take out the rest in glory. Teresa And if you’re wounded, you’ll