Mrs. Broderick: Ah, who would be taking a liking to me as they might to a young girl in her bloom.
Nestor: Oh, it’s a sort of thing might happen. Sure age didn’t catch on to you yet; you are clean and fresh and sound. What’s this I was reading in “Answers.” (Looks at it.) “Romantic elopement....”
Mrs. Broderick: I know of no one would be thinking of me for a wife ... unless it might be yourself, Mr. Nestor....
Nestor: (Jumping up and speaking fast and running finger up and down paper.) “Performance of Dick Whittington.” ... There now, there is a story that I read in my reading, it was called Whittington and the Cat. It was the cat led to his fortune. There might some person take a fancy to your cat....
Mrs. Broderick: Ah, let you have done now. I have no cat this good while. I banished it on the head of it threatening the jackdaw.
Nestor: The jackdaw?
Mrs. Broderick: (Fetches cage from inner room.) Sure I reared it since the time it fell down the chimney and I going into my bed. It is often you should have seen it, in or out of its cage. Hero his name is. Come out now, Hero.
(Opens cage.)
Nestor: (Slapping his side.) That is it ... that’s the very thing. Listen to me now, Mrs. Broderick, there are some might give a good price for that bird. (Sitting down to the work.) It chances now there is a friend of mine in South Africa. A mine owner he is ... very rich ... but it is down in the mine he has to live by reason of the Kaffirs ... it is hard to keep a watch upon them in the half dark, they being black.
Mrs. Broderick: I suppose....