CHAPTER IV
Patsy Devlin strolled into the Imperial Hotel at noon. He found Jimmy O’Loughlin, the proprietor, behind the bar, and was served at once with a pint of porter.
“It’s fine weather for the hay, thanks be to God,” he observed.
In Connacht the hay harvest is gathered during the month of August, and Patsy’s comment on the weather was seasonable.
“I’ve seen worse,” said Jimmy O’Loughlin. “But what’s on you at all, Patsy, that you haven’t been next or nigh the place this two months or more?”
“Be damn! but after the way you behaved over the election of the inspector of sheep dipping, the wonder is that I’d ever enter your door again. What would hinder you giving me the job as soon as another?”
Jimmy O’Loughlin did not wish to discuss the subject. He was, as a trader ought to be, a peaceful individual, anxious to live on good terms with all possible customers. He realized that the election was a subject on which Patsy was likely to feel bitterly. He filled another glass with porter from the tap and handed it silently across the counter. Patsy tendered a coin in payment.
“I’ll not take it from you,” said Jimmy O’Loughlin heartily. “It would be a queer thing if I wouldn’t give you a sup at my own expense now that you are here after all this length of time. How’s herself?”
Patsy Devlin took a pull at the second pint of porter.