The man, not yet forty, a battered, middle-aged by-product of hale and reckless vigour, passed his hands 76 over his temples with the dignity of a Hibernian Hamlet:
“The harp that wanst through Tara’s halls—” he began; but memory failed; and two tears—by-products, also, of Grogan’s whiskey—sparkled in his reproachful eyes.
“I’m merely telling you,” remarked Barres. “We all like you, Soane, but the landlord won’t stand for it.”
“May God forgive him,” muttered Soane. “Was there ever a landlord but he was a tyrant, too?”
Barres blew out the candle; a faint light above the Fu-dog outside, over the street door, illuminated the stone hall.
“You ought to keep sober for your little daughter’s sake,” insisted Barres in a low voice. “You love her, don’t you?”
“I do that!” said Soane—“God bless her and her poor mother, who could hould up her pretty head with anny wan till she tuk up with th’ like o’ me!”
His brogue always increased in his cups; devotion to Ireland and a lofty scorn of landlords grew with both.
“You’d better keep away from Grogan’s,” remarked Barres.
“I had a bite an’ a sup at Grogan’s. Is there anny harrm in that, sorr?”