"Poor lad! And that was a misfortune. Is he badly hurt?" Mrs. Quirk would ask.
"Not hurt in his body, but dispirited. Regan discharged him without a character. I went to him myself; it's a surly man he is. 'Why not give the boy a testimonial?' I asked. 'It's the whip I will give him,' he answered. That was all I got from Regan."
"And why was the man so heartless?" asked Mrs. Quirk.
"After all, Regan lost his horse and cart. You can scarcely blame him," Kathleen would explain.
"And hasn't he plenty of money to buy another? I have no patience with Regan. And there is Joe, with a mother depending on him, out of work, and with no testimonial to help him to another," Molly would reply.
The result would be a few shillings from the old lady's purse, which Joe would probably spend on "a good thing," that would just fail to secure a race, as "good things" so often do. But Molly Healy was never discouraged by such trifles as these.
"What did you do with the money, Joe?" she would ask.
"It was Harry Price told me to invest it on Blue Peter."
"I told you to take it home to your mother. Shame on you, Joe, to be wasting her food on horses."