“You may say that!” said Moll; “things do turn out very contrairy betimes, and let people do their best endayvours! Here now,” she went on, “is a pair of stockings I’m after knitting for Jack that’s a third cousin of me own ...” for she wanted now to make some excuse up for having come there at all; “but now, as he’s not with you, I dunno will I give them to him at all!”
“He’s not worthy of them,” said Mickey, eyeing the stockings in Moll’s hand, and from them looking down to where his own were showing above the rims of his brogues, and thinking that there was scarcely an inch of the same stockings but was holes, for the want of some woman to dam them for him; “Jack’s not worthy of them. But as you have them this far, if you’d sooner not be having to carry them back again, you can just leave them here, and I’ll see to make some use of them.”
“They’d not be suitable for your wear, Mr. Heffernan,” said Moll; “just only coarse, plain knitting of me own pattern....” Moll had no wish to let Mickey have them at all. He was known to be a bit near and “grabbish”; and she knew he’d not give her more than maybe a handful of meal or a few potatoes for the stockings.
“Och, they’re not too bad at all,” said Heffernan. He liked nothing better than to get something for nothing. So Moll then changed her tune.
“Well, sure you’re welcome to them! or anything else I’d have, only they’re not good enough ... but a poor ould body like me, it’s little I have at any time.... And is it gone for good Jack Rorke is?” she said.
“Good or bad, he’s gone out of this; and far better off I am, without him or the likes of him!” said Mickey; “he’s as stupid as a kishful of brogues. And lazy along with all!”
Heffernan went on talking like this, never remembering that Moll had said Jack was a cousin of hers. But he was a bit stupid himself, as well as the boy he was abusing. And Moll was too cute to let him see if she was vexed. Anyway, what did she care about Jack? and in particular when it was from a man like Heffernan that the talk and fault-finding was coming.
“He was fit for nothing in life,” Mickey went on, “only standing about, watching a hen to go lay! I’m well rid of Jack! But I’ll have to get some one in his place! I’m not all out as souple as I used to be!”
Well, that minute a new plan came into Moll’s mind. She saw only too plainly that Jack Rorke would have no chance of a character from Heffernan; and without that, from the last man that had employed him, Jack would never get the herding.
So, as quick as a flash, she began on a new tack.