and
retires.

BROADBENT. Try a whisky and soda.

TIM [sobered]. There you touch the national wakeness, sir.
[Piously] Not that I share it meself. I've seen too much of the
mischief of it.

BROADBENT [pouring the whisky]. Say when.

TIM. Not too sthrong. [Broadbent stops and looks enquiringly at
him]. Say half-an-half. [Broadbent, somewhat startled by this
demand, pours a little more, and again stops and looks]. Just a
dhrain more: the lower half o the tumbler doesn't hold a fair
half. Thankya.

BROADBENT [laughing]. You Irishmen certainly do know how to
drink. [Pouring some whisky for himself] Now that's my poor
English idea of a whisky and soda.

TIM. An a very good idea it is too. Dhrink is the curse o me
unhappy counthry. I take it meself because I've a wake heart and
a poor digestion; but in principle I'm a teetoatler.

BROADBENT [suddenly solemn and strenuous]. So am I, of course.
I'm a Local Optionist to the backbone. You have no idea, Mr
Haffigan, of the ruin that is wrought in this country by the
unholy alliance of the publicans, the bishops, the Tories, and
The Times. We must close the public-houses at all costs [he
drinks].

TIM. Sure I know. It's awful [he drinks]. I see you're a good
Liberal like meself, sir.

BROADBENT. I am a lover of liberty, like every true Englishman,
Mr Haffigan. My name is Broadbent. If my name were Breitstein,
and I had a hooked nose and a house in Park Lane, I should carry
a Union Jack handkerchief and a penny trumpet, and tax the food
of the people to support the Navy League, and clamor for the
destruction of the last remnants of national liberty--

TIM. Not another word. Shake hands.

BROADBENT. But I should like to explain--

TIM. Sure I know every word you're goin to say before yev said
it. I know the sort o man yar. An so you're thinkin o comin to
Ireland for a bit?

BROADBENT. Where else can I go? I am an Englishman and a Liberal;
and now that South Africa has been enslaved and destroyed, there
is no country left to me to take an interest in but Ireland.
Mind: I don't say that an Englishman has not other duties. He has
a duty to Finland and a duty to Macedonia. But what sane man can
deny that an Englishman's first duty is his duty to Ireland?
Unfortunately, we have politicians here more unscrupulous than
Bobrikoff, more bloodthirsty than Abdul the Damned; and it is
under their heel that Ireland is now writhing.

TIM. Faith, they've reckoned up with poor