Uncle William made a gesture of impatience. "You know rightly, Matthew's no good for a job of this sort!"
"Well, then, you'll have to go yourself. I'll keep an eye to the shop, forby my own work!..."
John got up and put John Halifax, Gentleman on the window-ledge.
"You needn't bother yourself, ma," he said. "I'm going to Belfast the morrow. What is it you want me to do, Uncle William?"
Mrs. MacDermott stared at him for a moment, then she got up and hurried out of the kitchen. They could hear her mounting the stairs, and then they heard the sound of her bedroom door being violently slammed.
"Women are queer, John," said Uncle William, "but the queerest women of all are the women that are mothers. Anybody'd think I was proposing to send you to the bad place, and dear knows, Belfast's not that!"
"What's the job you want me to do?"
"Come into the shop and I'll tell you!"
John followed his Uncle into the shop and they sat down together in the little Counting House.
"There's really nothing that a postcard couldn't do," Uncle William said. "That was the excuse. I've been thinking about you, John, and I thought it was a terrible pity you should never get out and about by yourself a bit ... out of Ballyards, I mean ... to look round you. It's no good to a lad to be always running about with his ma!"