The Drone | Page 2

the tray to the table and starting to get ready to wash up the cups). I do believe sometimes that Uncle Dan's a lazy man.
KATE (assisting her at the washing and stopping as if astonished at the statement). And is it only now you're after finding that out! Sure the whole countryside knowed it this years and years.
MARY (sharply). The whole countryside has no business to talk about what doesn't concern it.
KATE. Oh, well, people are bound to talk, Miss.
MARY. But then Uncle Dan is awfully clever. He's got the whole brains of the Murrays, so father says, and then, besides that, he is a grand talker.
KATE. Aye. He can talk plenty. Sure Sarah McMinn, that lives up the Cut, says its a shame the way he's going on this twenty years and more, never doing a hand's turn from morning to night, and she says she wonders your poor father stands him and his nonsense.
MARY. Who said that?
KATE. Sarah McMinn told Johnny McAndless that yesterday.
MARY. Sarah McMinn? Pooh! That hard, mean, old thing. No. I believe in Uncle Dan and so does father. He'll make a name for himself yet.
KATE. Well, it's getting near time he done it.
MARY. And that Sarah McMinn they say just keeps her brother in starvation, and she just says nasty things like that about Uncle Dan because he doesn't like her.
KATE. Aye. He never did like people as seen through him, not but she is a mean old skin-a-louse. (The voice of DANIEL MURRAY is heard calling from within.) He's up, Miss.
MARY. Are you up, uncle?
(DAN MURRAY opens the door from the inner apartments and comes into the kitchen. He is carelessly dressed and sleepy-looking as if just out of bed, wears a muffler and glasses, and appears to be some fifty years of age.)
DANIEL. Yes. Did the Whig come yet?
MARY. Yes. I put it in your workshop.
DANIEL (glancing at the clock). Bless my heart, it's half-past one!
MARY (reproachfully). It is, indeed, uncle.
DANIEL. Well! Well! Time goes round, Mary. Time goes round. (Kate picks up the bucket and goes out by the yard door.) Where's your father? (He crosses over to the workshop door.)
MARY. He's out working with Sam Brown at the threshing all morning since seven o'clock.
DANIEL. Well! Well! A very industrious man is John Murray. Very. But lacking in brains, my dear--lacking in brains. Kind, good-hearted, easy-going, but--ah! well, one can't help these things. (He goes towards the workshop.) Where did you say the Whig was, Mary?
MARY. It's in your workshop. (He crosses over to go there.)
MARY. You were very late coming in last night, uncle.
DANIEL. Eh? (He goes in, gets the paper, comes out again.)
MARY. I heard you coming in, and the clock was just after striking two. (He sits down and opens paper.)
DANIEL. Well--I met a few friends last night. Appreciative friends I could talk to, and I was explaining that new idea of mine that I've been working at so long--that new idea for a fan-bellows. It's a great thing. Oh yes. It should be. I sat up quite a while last night, thinking it over, and I believe I've got more ideas about it--better ones.
MARY. Do you think you'll make money off it, uncle?
DANIEL. Mary--if it comes off--if I can get someone to take it up, I believe 'twill make our fortune, I do.
MARY. Oh, uncle, it would be lovely if you did, and I would just die to see that nasty McMinn woman's face when she hears about you making such a hit.
DANIEL. McMinn? Has that woman been sneering about me again? That's one woman, Mary, I can't stand. I can never do myself justice explaining ideas in company when that woman is present.
MARY. Never mind her, uncle. (Coming close beside him.) Do you mind the time last time, uncle, when you went up to Belfast for a week to see about that patent for--what's this the patent was, uncle?
DANIEL (uncomfortably). Last time? Aye? Why?
MARY. Yes. Don't you remember you said you knew of an awfully nice boy that you met, and you were going to bring him down here.
DANIEL. Upon my soul, I had clean forgotten. Yes, yes. I think I did say something about a young fellow I met.
MARY. Was he nice, uncle?
DANIEL (becoming absorbed in the newspaper). Eh? I think so. Oh. He was--very nice chap.
MARY. Well, you said he was coming here to see me, and he never turned up yet.
DANIEL. Did I? Very possibly. I suppose he must have forgotten.
MARY (walking away to the left and then back again pouting). I'm sick of the boys here. There's only Alick McCready that's anyway passable. When will you see him again, uncle?
DANIEL. Well--possibly, when I go up to town again. Very soon, perhaps. That is if your father, Mary, can spare the money.
MARY (thoughtfully).