“Indeed, and he was, sir.” Mrs. O’Grady stopped as she spoke, and tweeked a chair cover straight. “It shook him.”
“Terrible times, Mrs. O’Grady.”
“They do be terrible times. Sure, but we’re used to terrible times in Ireland. It was the same when I was a girl, and before I was a girl. Why, my grandfather was murdered out there on the Wicklow Hills. There was terrible times then. It’s me mother I’ve heard tell of them over and over again. Never trust the English, she said, and I never have, no, not the length of me arm, nor my children either. Ah, well you don’t have to go streeling the streets for news in Ireland.” There was a tap at the door, which made us all jump, and the next minute Mrs. Slaney bustled into the room.
“Mrs. O’Grady, I’ve called you three times, what are you doing?”
“I’m after taking the orders for dinner.”
“You won’t mind if I take Mrs. O’Grady away, I’m sure,” she said. “You’re going out, I see. Are you going near the Electric Light Company’s offices? It would save me a trip. No? Grafton Street? Now, I wonder if you would buy me a sixpenny saucepan at Woolworth’s. Mrs. O’Grady burnt my little cocoa saucepan last night.”
She hurried from the room, Mrs. O’Grady going before her.
“Well,” said Himself, “I thought you were going to refuse any more errands?”
“She didn’t give me time to answer.”
Mrs. Slaney bustled into the room again.