Bartley. Indeed it's a poor country and a scarce country to be living in. But I'm thinking if I went to America it's long ago the day I'd be dead!
Mrs. Fallon. So you might, indeed. [She puts her basket on a barrel and begins putting parcels in it, taking them from under her cloak.]
Bartley. And it's a great expense for a poor man to be buried in America.
Mrs. Fallon. Never fear, Bartley Fallon, but I'll give you a good burying the day you'll die.
Bartley. Maybe it's yourself will be buried in the graveyard of Cloonmara before me, Mary Fallon, and I myself that will be dying unbeknownst some night, and no one a-near me. And the cat itself may be gone straying through the country, and the mice squealing over the quilt.
Mrs. Fallon. Leave off talking of dying. It might be twenty years you'll be living yet.
Bartley [with a deep sigh]. I'm thinking if I'll be living at the end of twenty years, it's a very old man I'll be then!
Mrs. Tarpey [turns and sees them]. Good morrow, Bartley Fallon; good morrow, Mrs. Fallon. Well, Bartley, you'll find no cause for complaining to-day; they are all saying it was a good fair.
Bartley [raising his voice]. It was not a good fair, Mrs. Tarpey. It was a scattered sort of a fair. If we didn't expect more, we got less. That's the way with me always; whatever I have to sell goes down and whatever I have to buy goes up. If there's ever any misfortune coming to this world, it's on myself it pitches, like a flock of crows on seed potatoes.
Mrs. Fallon. Leave off talking of misfortunes, and listen to Jack Smith that is coming the way, and he singing. [Voice of Jack Smith heard singing:]