"making a show of the great people there was one time walking the world.
White skulls and black skulls and yellow skulls, and some with full
teeth, and some haven't only but one."

PHILLY. It was no lie, maybe, for when I was a young lad there was a
graveyard beyond the house with the remnants of a man who had thighs as
long as your arm. He was a horrid man, I'm telling you, and there was
many a fine Sunday I'd put him together for fun, and he with shiny
bones, you wouldn't meet the like of these days in the cities of the
world.

MAHON -- [getting up.] -- You wouldn't is it? Lay your eyes on that
skull, and tell me where and when there was another the like of it, is
splintered only from the blow of a loy.

PHILLY. Glory be to God! And who hit you at all?

MAHON -- [triumphantly.] It was my own son hit me. Would you believe
that?

JIMMY. Well, there's wonders hidden in the heart of man!

PHILLY -- [suspiciously.] And what way was it done?

MAHON -- [wandering about the room.] -- I'm after walking hundreds and
long scores of miles, winning clean beds and the fill of my belly four
times in the day, and I doing nothing but telling stories of that naked
truth. (He comes to them a little aggressively.) Give me a supeen and
I'll tell you now. [Widow Quin comes in and stands aghast behind him. He
is facing Jimmy and Philly, who are on the left.]

JIMMY. Ask herself beyond. She's the stuff hidden in her shawl.

WIDOW QUIN -- [coming to Mahon quickly.] -- you here, is it? You didn't
go far at all?

MAHON. I seen the coasting steamer passing, and I got a drought upon me
and a cramping leg, so I said, "The divil go along with him," and turned
again. (Looking under her shawl.) And let you give me a supeen, for I'm
destroyed travelling since Tuesday was a week.

WIDOW QUIN -- [getting a glass, in a cajoling tone.] -- Sit down then by
the fire and take your ease for a space. You've a right to be destroyed
indeed, with your walking, and fighting, and facing the sun (giving him
poteen from a stone jar she has brought in.) There now is a drink for
you, and may it be to your happiness and length of life.

MAHON -- [taking glass greedily and sitting down by fire.] -- God
increase you!

WIDOW QUIN -- [taking men to the right stealthily.] -- Do you know what?
That man's raving from his wound to-day, for I met him a while since
telling a rambling tale of a tinker had him destroyed. Then he heard of
Christy's deed, and he up a