DEVLIN The poor have their wants, of course, but the rich, bad luck and misfortune to them one and all, have their troubles also, because they don't know what they want, the discontented, lazy, good-for-nothin' varmints. May they all perish be their own folly before the world or their money comes to an end.
NAGLE
'Tis only the poor who knows how bad the rich are.
And only the rich that can be hard on the poor. Have
you a match, if you please?
DEVLIN (handing a box)
You'll find plenty in that.
NAGLE All the comfort some of us have in this world is a smoke, that's when we have the tobacco, of course.
DEVLIN There'll be smokin' enough in the next world, they say, but that's cold comfort to a man without the fillin's of a pipe or a match to light it.
NAGLE
'Tis a great misfortune to be born at all.
DEVLIN That's what I've often been thinkin'. And many's the time I've cursed the day that my father met my mother. (Sadly) 'Twould be better for us all in spite of what the clergy say that we were all Protestants, or else died before we came to the use of reason. But things might be worse.
NAGLE Trouble comes to us all, and 'tis a consolation to know that the King must die as well as the beggar. Think of me, and I after losin' my return ticket to Carlow, and I must be there to-night even if I have to walk every step of the way.
DEVLIN
And haven't you the price of your ticket?
NAGLE The devil a penny at all have I, and unless I can sell my watch to buy my ticket with, I'll lose my job, and then my wife and family must go to the workhouse.