John Bull's Other Island Part 16

BROADBENT. I insist: it will give me the greatest pleasure, I a.s.sure you. My car is in the stable: I can get it round in five minutes.

MATTHEW. Well, sir, if you wouldn't mind, we could bring the pig I've just bought from Corny.

BROADBENT [with enthusiasm]. Certainly, Mr Haffigan: it will be quite delightful to drive with a pig in the car: I shall feel quite like an Irishman. Hodson: stay with Mr Haffigan; and give him a hand with the pig if necessary. Come, Larry; and help me.

[He rushes away through the shrubbery].

LARRY [throwing the paper ill-humoredly on the chair]. Look here, Tom! here, I say! confound it! [he runs after him].

MATTHEW [glowering disdainfully at Hodson, and sitting down on Cornelius's chair as an act of social self-a.s.sertion] N are you the valley?

HODSON. The valley? Oh, I follow you: yes: I'm Mr Broadbent's valet.

MATTHEW. Ye have an aisy time of it: you look purty sleek. [With suppressed ferocity] Look at me! Do I look sleek?

HODSON [sadly]. I wish I ad your ealth: you look as hard as nails. I suffer from an excess of uric acid.

MATTHEW. Musha what sort o disease is zhouraga.s.sid? Didjever suffer from injustice and starvation? Dhat's the Irish disease.

It's aisy for you to talk o sufferin, an you livin on the fat o the land wid money wrung from us.

HODSON [Coolly]. Wots wrong with you, old chap? Has ennybody been doin ennything to you?

MATTHEW. Anythin timme! Didn't your English masther say that the blood biled in him to hear the way they put a rint on me for the farm I made wid me own hans, and turned me out of it to give it to Billy Byrne?

HODSON. Ow, Tom Broadbent's blood boils pretty easy over ennything that appens out of his own country. Don't you be taken in by my ole man, Paddy.

MATTHEW [indignantly]. Paddy yourself! How dar you call me Paddy?

HODSON [unmoved]. You just keep your hair on and listen to me.

You Irish people are too well off: that's what's the matter with you. [With sudden pa.s.sion] You talk of your rotten little farm because you made it by chuckin a few stownes dahn a hill! Well, wot price my grenfawther, I should like to know, that fitted up a fuss clawss shop and built up a fuss clawss drapery business in London by sixty years work, and then was chucked aht of it on is ed at the end of is lease withaht a penny for his goodwill. You talk of evictions! you that cawn't be moved until you've run up eighteen months rent. I once ran up four weeks in Lambeth when I was aht of a job in winter. They took the door off its inges and the winder aht of its sashes on me, and gave my wife pnoomownia. I'm a widower now. [Between his teeth] Gawd! when I think of the things we Englishmen av to put up with, and hear you Irish hahlin abaht your silly little grievances, and see the way you makes it worse for us by the rotten wages you'll come over and take and the rotten places you'll sleep in, I jast feel that I could take the oul bloomin British awland and make you a present of it, jast to let you find out wot real ardship's like.

MATTHEW [starting up, more in scandalized incredulity than in anger]. D'ye have the face to set up England agen Ireland for injustices an wrongs an disthress an sufferin?

HODSON [with intense disgust and contempt, but with c.o.c.kney coolness]. Ow, chuck it, Paddy. Cheese it. You danno wot ardship is over ere: all you know is ah to ahl abaht it. You take the biscuit at that, you do. I'm a Owm Ruler, I am. Do you know why?

MATTHEW [equally contemptuous]. D'ye know, yourself?

HODSON. Yes I do. It's because I want a little attention paid to my own country; and thet'll never be as long as your chaps are ollerin at Wesminister as if nowbody mettered but your own bloomin selves. Send em back to h.e.l.l or C'naught, as good oul English Cromwell said. I'm jast sick of Ireland. Let it gow. Cut the cable. Make it a present to Germany to keep the oul Kyzer busy for a while; and give poor owld England a chawnce: thets wot I say.

MATTHEW [full of scorn for a man so ignorant as to be unable to p.r.o.nounce the word Connaught, which practically rhymes with bonnet in Ireland, though in Hodson's dialect it rhymes with untaught]. Take care we don't cut the cable ourselves some day, bad scran to you! An tell me dhis: have yanny Coercion Acs in England? Have yanny removables? Have you Dublin Castle to suppress every newspaper dhat takes the part o your own counthry?

HODSON. We can beyave ahrselves withaht sich things.

MATTHEW. Bedad you're right. It'd only be waste o time to muzzle a sheep. Here! where's me pig? G.o.d forgimme for talkin to a poor ignorant craycher like you.

HODSON [grinning with good-humored malice, too convinced of his own superiority to feel his withers wrung]. Your pig'll ave a rare doin in that car, Paddy. Forty miles an ahr dahn that rocky lane will strike it pretty pink, you bet.

MATTHEW [scornfully]. Hwy can't you tell a raisonable lie when you're about it? What horse can go forty mile an hour?

HODSON. Orse! Wy, you silly oul rotten it's not a orse it's a mowtor. Do you suppose Tom Broadbent would gow off himself to arness a orse?

MATTHEW [in consternation]. Holy Moses! Don't tell me it's the ingine he wants to take me on.

HODSON. Wot else?

MATTHEW. Your sowl to Morris Kelly! why didn't you tell me that before? The divil an ingine he'll get me on this day. [His ear catches an approaching teuf-teuf] Oh murdher! it's comin afther me: I hear the puff puff of it. [He runs away through the gate, much to Hodson's amus.e.m.e.nt. The noise of the motor ceases; and Hodson, antic.i.p.ating Broadbent's return, throws off the politician and recomposes himself as a valet. Broadbent and Larry come through the shrubbery. Hodson moves aside to the gate].

BROADBENT. Where is Mr Haffigan? Has he gone for the pig?

HODSON. Bolted, sir! Afraid of the motor, sir.

BROADBENT [much disappointed]. Oh, that's very tiresome. Did he leave any message?

HODSON. He was in too great a hurry, sir. Started to run home, sir, and left his pig behind him.

BROADBENT [eagerly]. Left the pig! Then it's all right. The pig's the thing: the pig will win over every Irish heart to me. We'll take the pig home to Haffigan's farm in the motor: it will have a tremendous effect. Hodson!

HODSON. Yes sir?

BROADBENT. Do you think you could collect a crowd to see the motor?

HODSON. Well, I'll try, sir.

BROADBENT. Thank you, Hodson: do.

Hodson goes out through the gate.

LARRY [desperately]. Once more, Tom, will you listen to me?

BROADBENT. Rubbish! I tell you it will be all right.

LARRY. Only this morning you confessed how surprised you were to find that the people here showed no sense of humor.

BROADBENT [suddenly very solemn]. Yes: their sense of humor is in abeyance: I noticed it the moment we landed. Think of that in a country where every man is a born humorist! Think of what it means! [Impressively] Larry we are in the presence of a great national grief.

LARRY. What's to grieve them?

BROADBENT. I divined it, Larry: I saw it in their faces. Ireland has never smiled since her hopes were buried in the grave of Gladstone.

LARRY. Oh, what's the use of talking to such a man? Now look here, Tom. Be serious for a moment if you can.

BROADBENT [stupent] Serious! I!!!

LARRY. Yes, you. You say the Irish sense of humor is in abeyance.

Well, if you drive through Rosscullen in a motor car with Haffigan's pig, it won't stay in abeyance. Now I warn you.

BROADBENT [breezily]. Why, so much the better! I shall enjoy the joke myself more than any of them. [Shouting] Hallo, Patsy Farrell, where are you?

PATSY [appearing in the shrubbery]. Here I am, your honor.