The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays | Page 8

City.]
CHARACTERS
BARTLEY FALLON MRS. FALLON JACK SMIT SHAWN EARLY TIM CASEY JAMES RYAN MRS. TARPEY MRS. TULLY JOE MULDOON, a policeman A REMOVABLE MAGISTRATE
SCENE: _The outskirts of a Fair. An Apple Stall._ MRS. TARPEY _sitting at it._ MAGISTRATE and POLICEMAN _enter._
MAGISTRATE. So that is the Fair Green. Cattle and sheep and mud. No system. What a repulsive sight!
POLICEMAN. That is so, indeed.
MAGISTRATE. I suppose there is a good deal of disorder in this place?
POLICEMAN. There is.
MAGISTRATE. Common assault?
POLICEMAN. It's common enough.
MAGISTRATE. Agrarian crime, no doubt?
POLICEMAN. That is so.
MAGISTRATE. Boycotting? Maiming of cattle? Firing into houses?
POLICEMAN. There was one time, and there might be again.
MAGISTRATE. That is bad. Does it go any farther than that?
POLICEMAN. Far enough, indeed.
MAGISTRATE. Homicide, then! This district has been shamefully neglected! I will change all that. When I was in the Andaman Islands, my system never failed. Yes, yes, I will change all that. What has that woman on her stall?
POLICEMAN. Apples mostly--and sweets.
MAGISTRATE. Just see if there are any unlicensed goods underneath--spirits or the like. We had evasions of the salt tax in the Andaman Islands.
POLICEMAN (_sniffing cautiously and upsetting a heap of apples_). I see no spirits here--or salt.
MAGISTRATE (to MRS. TARPEY). Do you know this town well, my good woman?
MRS. TARPEY (_holding out some apples_). A penny the half-dozen, your honor.
POLICEMAN (_shouting_). The gentleman is asking do you know the town! He's the new magistrate!
MRS. TARPEY (_rising and ducking_). Do I know the town? I do, to be sure.
MAGISTRATE (_shouting_). What is its chief business?
MRS, TARPEY. Business, is it? What business would the people here have but to be minding one another's business?
MAGISTRATE. I mean what trade have they?
MRS. TARPEY. Not a trade. No trade at all but to be talking.
MAGISTRATE. I shall learn nothing here.
(JAMES RYAN _comes in, pipe in mouth. Seeing MAGISTRATE, he retreats quickly, taking pipe from mouth._)
MAGISTRATE. The smoke from that man's pipe had a greenish look; he may be growing unlicensed tobacco at home. I wish I had brought my telescope to this district. Come to the post-office; I will telegraph for it. I found it very useful in the Andaman Islands.
(MAGISTRATE and POLICEMAN _go out left._)
MRS. TARPEY. Bad luck to Jo Muldoon, knocking my apples this way and that way. (_Begins arranging them._) Showing off he was to the new magistrate.
(Enter BARTLEY FALLON and MRS. FALLON.)
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_)
I thought, my first love, There'd be but one house between you and me. And I thought I would find Yourself coaxing my child on your knee. Over the tide I would leap with the leap of a swan. Till I came to the side Of the wife of the red-haired man!
(JACK SMITH _comes in; he is a red-haired man, and is carrying a hayfork._)
MRS. TARPEY. That should be a good song if I had my hearing.
MRS. FALLON (_shouting_). It's "The Red-haired Man's Wife."
MRS. TARPEY. I know it well. That's the song that has a skin on it!
(_She turns her back to them and goes on arranging her apples._)
MRS. FALLON. Where's herself, Jack Smith?
JACK SMITH. She was delayed with her washing;