Old Jack raked the cinders together with a piece of cardboard and spread them judiciously over the whitening dome of coals. When the dome was thinly covered his face lapsed into darkness but, as he set himself to fan the fire again, his crouching shadow ascended the opposite wall and his face slowly re-emerged into light. It was an old man’s face, very bony and hairy. The moist blue eyes blinked at the fire and the moist mouth fell open at times, munching once or twice mechanically when it closed. When the cinders had caught he laid the piece of cardboard against the wall, sighed and said: “That’s better now, Mr O’Connor.”
Mr O’Connor, a grey-haired young man, whose face was disfigured by many blotches and pimples, had just brought the tobacco for a cigarette into a shapely cylinder but when spoken to he undid his handiwork meditatively. Then he began to roll the tobacco again meditatively and after a moment’s thought decided to lick the paper.
“Did Mr Tierney say when he’d be back?” he asked in a husky falsetto.
“He didn’t say.”
Mr O’Connor put his cigarette into his mouth and began to search his pockets. He took out a pack of thin pasteboard cards.
“I’ll get you a match,” said the old man.
“Never mind, this’ll do,” said Mr O’Connor.
He selected one of the cards and read what was printed on it:
MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS
 
ROYAL EXCHANGE WARD
Mr Richard J. Tierney, P.L.G., respectfully solicits the favour of your vote and influence at the coming election in the Royal Exchange Ward.
Mr O’Connor had been engaged by Tierney’s agent to canvass one part of the ward but, as the weather was inclement and his boots let in the wet, he spent a great part of the day sitting by the fire in the Committee Room in Wicklow Street with Jack, the old caretaker. They had been sitting thus since the short day had grown dark. It was the sixth of October, dismal and cold out of doors.
Mr O’Connor tore a strip off the card and, lighting it, lit his cigarette. As he did so the flame lit up a leaf of dark glossy ivy in the lapel of his coat. The old man watched him attentively and then, taking up the piece of cardboard again, began to fan the fire slowly while his companion smoked.
“Ah, yes,” he said, continuing, “it’s hard to know what way to bring up children. Now who’d think he’d turn out like that! I sent him to the Christian Brothers and I done what I could for him, and there he goes boosing about. I tried to make him someway decent.”
He replaced the cardboard wearily.
“Only I’m an old man now I’d change his tune for him. I’d take the stick to his back and beat him while I could stand over him—as I done many a time before. The mother, you know, she cocks him up with this and that....”
“That’s what ruins children,” said Mr O’Connor.
“To be sure it is,” said the old man. “And little thanks you get for it, only impudence. He takes th’upper hand of me whenever he sees I’ve a sup taken. What’s the world coming to when sons speaks that way to their father?”
“What age is he?” said Mr O’Connor.
“Nineteen,” said the old man.
“Why don’t you put him to something?”
“Sure, amn’t I never done at the drunken bowsy ever since he left school? ‘I won’t keep you,’ I says. ‘You must get a job for yourself.’ But, sure, it’s worse whenever he gets a job; he drinks it all.”
Mr O’Connor shook his head in sympathy, and the old man fell silent, gazing into the fire. Someone opened the door of the room and called out:
“Hello! Is this a Freemasons’ meeting?”
“Who’s that?” said the old man.
“What are you doing in the dark?” asked a voice.
“Is that you, Hynes?” asked Mr O’Connor.
“Yes. What are you doing in the dark?” said Mr Hynes. advancing into the light of the fire.
He was a tall, slender young man with a light brown moustache. Imminent little drops of rain hung at the brim of his hat and the collar of his jacket-coat was turned up.
“Well, Mat,” he said to Mr O’Connor, “how goes it?”
Mr O’Connor shook his head. The old man left the hearth and, after stumbling about the room returned with two candlesticks which he thrust one after the other into the fire and carried to the table. A denuded room came into view and the fire lost all its cheerful colour. The walls of the room were bare except for a copy of an election address. In the middle of the room was a small table on which papers were heaped.
Mr Hynes leaned against the mantelpiece and asked:
“Has he paid you yet?”
“Not yet,” said Mr O’Connor. “I hope to God he’ll not leave us in the lurch tonight.”
Mr Hynes laughed.
“O, he’ll pay you. Never fear,” he said.
“I hope he’ll look smart about it if he means business,” said Mr O’Connor.
“What do you think, Jack?” said Mr Hynes satirically to the old man.
The old man returned to his seat by the fire, saying:
“It isn’t but he has it, anyway. Not like the other tinker.”
“What other tinker?” said Mr Hynes.
“Colgan,” said the old man scornfully.
“It is because Colgan’s a working-man you say that? What’s the difference between a good honest bricklayer and a publican—eh? Hasn’t the working-man as good a right to be in the Corporation as anyone else—ay, and a better right than those shoneens that are always hat in hand before any fellow with a handle to his name? Isn’t that so, Mat?” said Mr Hynes, addressing Mr O’Connor.
“I think you’re right,” said Mr O’Connor.
“One man is a plain honest man with no hunker-sliding about him. He goes in to represent the labour classes. This fellow you’re working for only wants to get some job or other.”
“Of course, the working-classes should be represented,” said the old man.
“The working-man,” said Mr Hynes, “gets all kicks and no halfpence. But it’s labour produces everything. The working-man is not looking for fat jobs for his sons and nephews and cousins. The working-man is not going to drag the honour of Dublin in the mud to please a German monarch.”
“How’s that?” said the old man.
“Don’t you know they want to present an address of welcome to Edward Rex if he comes here next year? What do we want kowtowing to a foreign king?”
“Our man won’t vote for the address,” said Mr O’Connor. “He goes in on the Nationalist ticket.”
“Won’t he?” said Mr Hynes. “Wait till you see whether he will or not. I know him. Is it Tricky Dicky Tierney?”
“By God! perhaps you’re right, Joe,” said Mr O’Connor. “Anyway, I wish he’d turn up with the spondulics.”
The three men fell silent. The old man began to rake more cinders together. Mr Hynes took off his hat, shook it and then turned down the collar of his coat, displaying, as he did so, an ivy leaf in the lapel.
“If this man was alive,” he said, pointing to the leaf, “we’d have no talk of an address of welcome.”
“That’s true,” said Mr O’Connor.
“Musha, God be with them times!” said the old man. “There was some life in it then.”
The room was silent again. Then a bustling little man with a snuffling nose and very cold ears pushed in the door. He walked over quickly to the fire, rubbing his hands as if he intended to produce a spark from them.
“No money, boys,” he said.
“Sit down here, Mr Henchy,” said the old man, offering him his chair.
“O, don’t stir, Jack, don’t stir,” said Mr Henchy.
He nodded curtly to Mr Hynes and sat down on the chair which the old man vacated.
“Did you serve Aungier Street?” he asked Mr O’Connor.
“Yes,” said Mr O’Connor, beginning to search his pockets for memoranda.
“Did you call on Grimes?”
“I did.”
“Well? How does he stand?”
“He wouldn’t promise. He said: ‘I won’t tell anyone what way I’m going to vote.’ But I think he’ll be all right.”
“Why so?”
“He asked me who the nominators were; and I told him. I mentioned Father Burke’s name. I think it’ll be all right.”
Mr Henchy began to snuffle and to rub his hands over the fire at a terrific speed. Then he said:
“For the love of God, Jack, bring us a bit of coal. There must be some left.”
The old man went out of the room.
“It’s no go,” said Mr Henchy, shaking his head. “I asked the little shoeboy, but he said: ‘Oh, now, Mr Henchy, when I see work going on properly I won’t forget you, you may be sure.’ Mean little tinker! ’Usha, how could he be anything else?”
“What did I tell you, Mat?” said Mr Hynes. “Tricky Dicky Tierney.”
“O, he’s as tricky as they make ’em,” said Mr Henchy. “He hasn’t got those little pigs’ eyes for nothing. Blast his soul! Couldn’t he pay up like a man instead of: ‘O, now, Mr Henchy, I must speak to Mr Fanning.... I’ve spent a lot of money’? Mean little shoeboy of hell! I suppose he forgets the time his little old father kept the hand-me-down shop in Mary’s Lane.”
“But is that a fact?” asked Mr O’Connor.
“God, yes,” said Mr Henchy. “Did you never hear that? And the men used to go in on Sunday morning before the houses were open to buy a waistcoat or a trousers—moya! But Tricky Dicky’s little old father always had a tricky little black bottle up in a corner. Do you mind now? That’s that. That’s where he first saw the light.”
The old man returned with a few lumps of coal which he placed here and there on the fire.
“That’s a nice how-do-you-do,” said Mr O’Connor. “How does he expect us to work for him if he won’t stump up?”
“I can’t help it,” said Mr Henchy. “I expect to find the bailiffs in the hall when I go home.”
Mr Hynes laughed and, shoving himself away from the mantelpiece with the aid of his shoulders, made ready to leave.
“It’ll be all right when King Eddie comes,” he said. “Well boys, I’m off for the present. See you later. ’Bye, ’bye.”
He went out of the room slowly. Neither Mr Henchy nor the old man said anything but, just as the door was closing, Mr O’Connor, who had been staring moodily into the fire, called out suddenly:
“’Bye, Joe.”
Mr Henchy waited a few moments and then nodded in the direction of the door.
“Tell me,” he said across the fire, “what brings our friend in here? What does he want?”
“’Usha, poor Joe!” said Mr O’Connor, throwing the end of his cigarette into the fire, “he’s hard up, like the rest of us.”
Mr Henchy snuffled vigorously and spat so copiously that he nearly put out the fire, which uttered a hissing protest.
“To tell you my private and candid opinion,” he said, “I think he’s a man from the other camp. He’s a spy of Colgan’s, if you ask me. Just go round and try and find out how they’re getting on. They won’t suspect you. Do you twig?”
“Ah, poor Joe is a decent skin,” said Mr O’Connor.
“His father was a decent respectable man,” Mr Henchy admitted. “Poor old Larry Hynes! Many a good turn he did in his day! But I’m greatly afraid our friend is not nineteen carat. Damn it, I can understand a fellow being hard up, but what I can’t understand is a fellow sponging. Couldn’t he have some spark of manhood about him?”
“He doesn’t get a warm welcome from me when he comes,” said the old man. “Let him work for his own side and not come spying around here.”
“I don’t know,” said Mr O’Connor dubiously, as he took out cigarette-papers and tobacco. “I think Joe Hynes is a straight man. He’s a clever chap, too, with the pen. Do you remember that thing he wrote...?”
“Some of these hillsiders and fenians are a bit too clever if you ask me,” said Mr Henchy. “Do you know what my private and candid opinion is about some of those little jokers? I believe half of them are in the pay of the Castle.”
“There’s no knowing,” said the old man.
“O, but I know it for a fact,” said Mr Henchy. “They’re Castle hacks.... I don’t say Hynes.... No, damn it, I think he’s a stroke above that.... But there’s a certain little nobleman with a cock-eye—you know the patriot I’m alluding to?”
Mr O’Connor nodded.
“There’s a lineal descendant of Major Sirr for you if you like! O, the heart’s blood of a patriot! That’s a fellow now that’d sell his country for fourpence—ay—and go down on his bended knees and thank the Almighty Christ he had a country to sell.”
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in!” said Mr Henchy.
A person resembling a poor clergyman or a poor actor appeared in the doorway. His black clothes were tightly buttoned on his short body and it was impossible to say whether he wore a clergyman’s collar or a layman’s, because the collar of his shabby frock-coat, the uncovered buttons of which reflected the candlelight, was turned up about his neck. He wore a round hat of hard black felt. His face, shining with raindrops, had the appearance of damp yellow cheese save where two rosy spots indicated the cheekbones. He opened his very long mouth suddenly to express disappointment and at the same time opened wide his very bright blue eyes to express pleasure and surprise.
“O Father Keon!” said Mr Henchy, jumping up from his chair. “Is that you? Come in!”
“O, no, no, no!” said Father Keon quickly, pursing his lips as if he were addressing a child.
“Won’t you come in and sit down?”
“No, no, no!” said Father Keon, speaking in a discreet indulgent velvety voice. “Don’t let me disturb you now! I’m just looking for Mr Fanning....”
“He’s round at the Black Eagle,” said Mr Henchy. “But won’t you come in and sit down a minute?”
“No, no, thank you. It was just a little business matter,” said Father Keon. “Thank you, indeed.”
He retreated from the doorway and Mr Henchy, seizing one of the candlesticks, went to the door to light him downstairs.
“O, don’t trouble, I beg!”
“No, but the stairs is so dark.”
“No, no, I can see.... Thank you, indeed.”
“Are you right now?”
“All right, thanks.... Thanks.”
Mr Henchy returned with the candlestick and put it on the table. He sat down again at the fire. There was silence for a few moments.
“Tell me, John,” said Mr O’Connor, lighting his cigarette with another pasteboard card.
“Hm?”
“What he is exactly?”
“Ask me an easier one,” said Mr Henchy.
“Fanning and himself seem to me very thick. They’re often in Kavanagh’s together. Is he a priest at all?”
“Mmmyes, I believe so.... I think he’s what you call a black sheep. We haven’t many of them, thank God! but we have a few.... He’s an unfortunate man of some kind....”
“And how does he knock it out?” asked Mr O’Connor.
“That’s another mystery.”
“Is he attached to any chapel or church or institution or——”
“No,” said Mr Henchy, “I think he’s travelli............