Cooney: Let you sign this and you may put it in the prayer book so long as she will get it safe. (Nestor signs. Cooney looks suspiciously at signature and compares it with a letter and then gives notes.)
Nestor: (Signing.) Joseph Nestor.
Cooney: Let me see now is it the same handwriting I used to be getting on the letters. It is. I have the notes here.
Nestor: Wait now till I see is there a prayer book.... (Looks on shelf). Treacle, castor oil, marmalade.... I see no books at all.
Cooney: Hurry on now, she will be coming in and finding me.
Nestor: Here is what will do as well.... “Old Moore’s Almanac.” I will put it here between the leaves. I will ask her the prophecy for the month. You can come back here after she finding it.
Cooney: Amn’t I after telling you I wouldn’t wish her to have sight of me here at all? What are you at now, I wonder, saying that. I will take my own way to know does she pay the money. It is not my intention to be made a fool of.
(Goes out.)
Nestor: You will be satisfied and well satisfied. Let me see now where are the predictions for the month. (Reads.) “The angry appearance of Scorpio and the position of the pale Venus and Jupiter presage much danger for England. The heretofore obsequious Orangemen will refuse to respond to the tocsin of landlordism. The scales are beginning to fall from their eyes.”
(Mrs. Broderick comes in without his noticing her. She gives a groan. He drops book and stuffs notes into his pocket.)