_Hazel:_ I'll do the same myself. It is hard to banish a sore
throat.

_(They put on coats. John brings in dinner. They sit down.)_

_Mineog:_ See can you baffle that draught of air, John.

_John:_ I'll go in search of something to stop it, sir. This bit
of a board I brought is too unshapely.

_Mineog:_ Two columns of the _Tribune_ as empty yet as anything
you could see. I had them kept free for the Bishop's speech and he
didn't come after.

_Hazel:_ That's the same cause has left myself with so wide a gap.

_Mineog:_ In the years past there used always to be something
happening such as famines, or the invention of printing. The whole
world has got very slack.

_Hazel:_ You are a better hand than what I am at filling odd
spaces would be left bare. It is often I think the news you put out
comes partly from your own brain, and the prophecies you lay down
about the weather and the crops.

_Mineog:_ Ah, I might stick in a bit of invention sometimes, when
I'm put to the pin of my collar.

_Hazel:_ I might maybe make an attack on the _Tribune_ for that.

_Mineog:_ Ah, what is it but a white sin. Sure it tells every
person the same thing. It doesn't tell many lies, it goes somewhere
a near it.

_Hazel:_ I spent a good while this evening searching through the
shelves of the press I have in the office. I write an article an odd
time, when there is nothing doing, that might come handy in a hurry.

_Mineog:_ So have I a press of the sort, and shelves in it. I am
after going through them to-day.

_Hazel:_ But it's hard find a thing would be suitable, unless you
might dress it up again someway fresh.

_Mineog:_ I made a thought and I searching a while ago. I was
thinking it would be a very nice thing to show respect to yourself,
and friendliness, putting down a short account of you and of all you
have done for your family and for the town.

_Hazel:_ That is a strange thing now! I had it in my mind to do
the very same service to yourself.

_Mineog:_ Is that so?

_Hazel:_ Your worth and your generosity and the way you have
worked the _Tribune_ for your own and for the public good.

_Mineog:_ And another thing. I not only thought to write it but I
am after writing it.

_Hazel: (Suspiciously.)_ You had not much time for that.

_Mineog:_ I never was one to spare myself in anything that could
benefit a friend.

_Hazel:_ Neither would I spare myself. I have my article wrote.

_Mineog:_ I have a mind to rea