I
saw at once that you were--You won't mind my speaking frankly?

TIM. Tell me all me faults as man to man. I can stand anything
but flatthery.

BROADBENT. May I put it in this way?--that I saw at once that you
were a thorough Irishman, with all the faults and all, the
qualities of your race: rash and improvident but brave and
goodnatured; not likely to succeed in business on your own
account perhaps, but eloquent, humorous, a lover of freedom, and
a true follower of that great Englishman Gladstone.

TIM. Spare me blushes. I mustn't sit here to be praised to me
face. But I confess to the goodnature: it's an Irish wakeness.
I'd share me last shillin with a friend.

BROADBENT. I feel sure you would, Mr Haffigan.

TIM [impulsively]. Damn it! call me Tim. A man that talks about
Ireland as you do may call me anything. Gimme a howlt o that
whisky bottle [he replenishes].

BROADBENT [smiling indulgently]. Well, Tim, will you come with me
and help to break the ice between me and your warmhearted,
impulsive countrymen?

TIM. Will I come to Madagascar or Cochin China wid you? Bedad
I'll come to the North Pole wid you if yll pay me fare; for the
divil a shillin I have to buy a third class ticket.

BROADBENT. I've not forgotten that, Tim. We must put that little
matter on a solid English footing, though the rest can be as
Irish as you please. You must come as my--my--well, I hardly know
what to call it. If we call you my agent, they'll shoot you. If
we call you a bailiff, they'll duck you in the horsepond. I have
a secretary already; and--

TIM. Then we'll call him the Home Secretary and me the Irish
Secretary. Eh?

BROADBENT [laughing industriously]. Capital. Your Irish wit has
settled the first difficulty. Now about your salary--

TIM. A salary, is it? Sure I'd do it for nothin, only me cloes ud
disgrace you; and I'd be dhriven to borra money from your
friends: a thing that's agin me nacher. But I won't take a penny
more than a hundherd a year. [He looks with restless cunning at
Broadbent, trying to guess how far he may go].

BROADBENT. If that will satisfy you--

TIM [more than reassured]. Why shouldn't it satisfy me? A
hundherd a year is twelve-pound a month, isn't it?

BROADBENT. No. Eight pound six and eightpence.

TIM. Oh murdher! An I'll have to sind five timme poor oul mother
in Ireland. But no matther: I said a hundherd; and what I said
I'll stick to, if I have to starve for it.

BROADBENT [with bu