MATTHEW. So he is, God be praised. Where's your father?
AUNT JUDY. He's inside, in the office, Mr Haffigan, with Barney Doarn n Father Dempsey.
Matthew, without wasting further words on the company, goes curtly into the house.
LARRY [staring after him]. Is anything wrong with old Mat?
NORA. No. He's the same as ever. Why?
LARRY. He's not the same to me. He used to be very civil to Master Larry: a deal too civil, I used to think. Now he's as surly and stand-off as a bear.
AUNT JUDY. Oh sure he's bought his farm in the Land Purchase. He's independent now.
NORA. It's made a great change, Larry. You'd harly know the old tenants now. You'd think it was a liberty to speak t'dhem—some o dhem. [She goes to the table, and helps to take off the cloth, which she and Aunt Judy fold up between them].
AUNT JUDY. I wonder what he wants to see Corny for. He hasn't been here since he paid the last of his old rent; and then he as good as threw it in Corny's face, I thought.
LARRY. No wonder! Of course they all hated us like the devil. Ugh! [Moodily] I've seen them in that office, telling my father what a fine boy I was, and plastering him with compliments, with your honor here and your honor there, when all the time their fingers were itching to beat his throat.