LARRY.Were you thinking of your money,Nora?
NORA.I didn't say so.
LARRY.Your money will not pay your cook's wages in London.
NORA [flaming up].If that's true--and the more shame for you to throw it in my face if it IS true--at all events it'll make us independent;for if the worst comes to the worst,we can always come back here an live on it.An if I have to keep his house for him,at all events I can keep you out of it;for I've done with you;and I wish I'd never seen you.So goodbye to you,Mister Larry Doyle.[She turns her back on him and goes home].
LARRY [watching her as she goes].Goodbye.Goodbye.Oh,that's so Irish!Irish both of us to the backbone:Irish,Irish,Irish--Broadbent arrives,conversing energetically with Keegan.
BROADBENT.Nothing pays like a golfing hotel,if you hold the land instead of the shares,and if the furniture people stand in with you,and if you are a good man of business.
LARRY.Nora's gone home.
BROADBENT [with conviction].You were right this morning,Larry.
I must feed up Nora.She's weak;and it makes her fanciful.Oh,by the way,did I tell you that we're engaged?
LARRY.She told me herself.
BROADBENT [complacently].She's rather full of it,as you may imagine.Poor Nora!Well,Mr Keegan,as I said,I begin to see my way here.I begin to see my way.
KEEGAN [with a courteous inclination].The conquering Englishman,sir.Within 24hours of your arrival you have carried off our only heiress,and practically secured the parliamentary seat.And you have promised me that when I come here in the evenings to meditate on my madness;to watch the shadow of the Round Tower lengthening in the sunset;to break my heart uselessly in the curtained gloaming over the dead heart and blinded soul of the island of the saints,you will comfort me with the bustle of a great hotel,and the sight of the little children carrying the golf clubs of your tourists as a preparation for the life to come.
BROADBENT [quite touched,mutely offering him a cigar to console him,at which he smiles and shakes his head].Yes,Mr Keegan:you're quite right.There's poetry in everything,even [looking absently into the cigar case]in the most modern prosaic things,if you know how to extract it [he extracts a cigar for himself and offers one to Larry,who takes it].If I was to be shot for it I couldn't extract it myself;but that's where you come in,you see [roguishly,waking up from his reverie and bustling Keegan goodhumoredly].And then I shall wake you up a bit.That's where I come in:eh?d'ye see?Eh?eh?[He pats him very pleasantly on the shoulder,half admiringly,half pityingly].
Just so,just so.[Coming back to business]By the way,I believe I can do better than a light railway here.There seems to be no question now that the motor boat has come to stay.Well,look at your magnificent river there,going to waste.
KEEGAN [closing his eyes]."Silent,O Moyle,be the roar of thy waters."BROADBENT.You know,the roar of a motor boat is quite pretty.
KEEGAN.Provided it does not drown the Angelus.
BROADBENT [reassuringly].Oh no:it won't do that:not the least danger.You know,a church bell can make a devil of a noise when it likes.
KEEGAN.You have an answer for everything,sir.But your plans leave one question still unanswered:how to get butter out of a dog's throat.
BROADBENT.Eh?
KEEGAN.You cannot build your golf links and hotels in the air.
For that you must own our land.And how will you drag our acres from the ferret's grip of Matthew Haffigan?How will you persuade Cornelius Doyle to forego the pride of being a small landowner?
How will Barney Doran's millrace agree with your motor boats?
Will Doolan help you to get a license for your hotel?
BROADBENT.My dear sir:to all intents and purposes the syndicate I represent already owns half Rosscullen.Doolan's is a tied house;and the brewers are in the syndicate.As to Haffigan's farm and Doran's mill and Mr Doyle's place and half a dozen others,they will be mortgaged to me before a month is out.
KEEGAN.But pardon me,you will not lend them more on their land than the land is worth;so they will be able to pay you the interest.
BROADBENT.Ah,you are a poet,Mr Keegan,not a man of business.
LARRY.We will lend everyone of these men half as much again on their land as it is worth,or ever can be worth,to them.
BROADBENT.You forget,sir,that we,with our capital,our knowledge,our organization,and may I say our English business habits,can make or lose ten pounds out of land that Haffigan,with all his industry,could not make or lose ten shillings out of.Doran's mill is a superannuated folly:I shall want it for electric lighting.
LARRY.What is the use of giving land to such men?they are too small,too poor,too ignorant,too ******minded to hold it against us:you might as well give a dukedom to a crossing sweeper.
BROADBENT.Yes,Mr Keegan:this place may have an industrial future,or it may have a residential future:I can't tell yet;but it's not going to be a future in the hands of your Dorans and Haffigans,poor devils!
KEEGAN.It may have no future at all.Have you thought of that?
BROADBENT.Oh,I'm not afraid of that.I have faith in Ireland,great faith,Mr Keegan.
KEEGAN.And we have none:only empty enthusiasms and patriotisms,and emptier memories and regrets.Ah yes:you have some excuse for believing that if there be any future,it will be yours;for our faith seems dead,and our hearts cold and cowed.An island of dreamers who wake up in your jails,of critics and cowards whom you buy and tame for your own service,of bold rogues who help you to plunder us that they may plunder you afterwards.Eh?
