“Sure it was two lorry loads iv military by this time. ‘Take him home,’ sez one, ‘and let him go. He’s only a poor old jarvey.’ ‘Poor old jarvey be damned,’ sez the other, ‘it’s Mike Collins himself maybe.’ ‘Have ye seen Mike Collins, jarvey?’ sez the other. ‘How should I be after knowing him?’ sez I. ‘Who was the fare you put down?’ ‘There was no fare,’ I sez. ‘I took a party home and was going back to stables and I fell asleep. The old mare must have turned herself round.’
“They laughed at that, and the Black-and-Tans was all for running me into the Castle; but the military, God save them, was for me being just a poor old jarvey, and they stood by me and jumped me into the car and drove me back to stables to see who I was, and then they took me back to the old mare and let me go. Och, but it was a night what with one and another, and it was after curfew when I was home, I was that tormented with them all. They pulled me up every short way and jumped me into a car to see who I was and then back again to the old mare. It’s no time for a jarvey, mum.”
We were rattling along the Liffey. The tide was out and the few seagulls were investigating the city’s discarded biscuit tins in the mud on either side of the water. All along the embankment were men—old men, young men, boys. They propped the walls, they dozed upon the bridges, they watched the Guinness brewery carts rumbling backwards and forwards. Some looked at us with blank faces; but the majority looked into the mud that the tide had left.
Finally we reached the hotel just as I was beginning to understand the jarvey’s speech.
“How much?” Himself let the coins in his pocket jingle.
“Four shillings.” The reply was given unblushingly. I could see the hotel porter reckoning his tip.
We had a large room looking down on the main street. A stream of people passed.
“Give a poor old woman a penny, sir,” I heard a beggar woman whine. “Mother iv God! a penny for the poor old woman.” She headed a man off, running in front of him and jerking the head of a wretched baby as she ran. “A penny for the love of God!”
The man escaped to be waylaid by two others.
“What a lot of fat beggars!” I exclaimed.