I'll lay it down now out of your way,
ma'am, the way you can cry your fill whatever
ails you.

_Mother: (Snatching it back.)_ Stop! I'll not
part with it! I know now what I can do! Now!
_(Points it at him.)_ I'll make a companion to be
listening to me through the long winter nights and
the long summer days, and the world to be without
any end at all, no more than the round of the
full moon! You that have no hearing, this will
bring back your hearing, the way you'll be a
listener and a benefit to myself for ever. I
wouldn't feel the weeks long that time!

_(Blows. Timothy turns away and gropes
toward wall.)_

_(She sings: Air, "Eileen Aroon.")_

"What if the days go wrong,
When you can hear!
What if the evening's long,
You being near,
I'll tell my troubles out,
Put darkness to the rout
And to the roundabout!
Having your ear!"

_(Rock at door: sneezes. Mother drops bellows
and goes. Timothy gives a cry,
claps hands to ears and rushes out as if
terrified.)_

_Rock: (Coming in seizes bellows.)_ Well now,
didn't this turn to be very lucky and very good!
The very thing I came looking for to be left there
under my hands! _(Puts it hurriedly under coat.)_

_Flannery: (Coming in.)_ What are you doing
here, James Rock?

_Rock_: What are you doing yourself?

_Flannery_: What is that in under your coat?

_Rock_: What's that to you?

_Flannery_: I'll know that when I see it.

_Rock_: What call have you to be questioning me?

_Flannery_: Open now your coat!

_Rock_: Stand out of my way!

_Flannery: (Suddenly tearing open coat and seizing
bellows.)_ Did you think it was unknownst to me
you stole the bellows?

_Rock_: Ah, what steal?

_Flannery_: Put it back in the place it was!

_Rock_: I will within three minutes.

_Flannery_: You'll put it back here and now.

_Rock: (Coaxingly.)_ Look at here now, Michael
Flannery, we'll make a league between us. Did
you ever see such folly as we're after seeing to-day?
Sitting there for an hour and a half till that one
settled the world upside down!

_Flannery_: If I did see folly, what I see now is
treachery.

_Rock_: Didn't you take notice of the way that
foolish old man is wasting and losing what was
given him for to benefit mankind? A blast he has
lost turning a pigeon to a crow, as if there wasn't
enough in it before of that tribe picking the spuds
out of the ridges. And another blast he has lost
turning poor Celia, that was harmles