as in us: we were like a play to her. You see, sir, she was
English: that was how it was. We was to her what the Pathans and
Senegalese was to me when I first seen them: I couldn't think, somehow,
that they were liars, and thieves, and backbiters, and drunkards, just
like ourselves or any other Christians. Oh, her ladyship never knew all
that was going on behind her back: how would she? When I was a weeshy
child, she gave me the first penny I ever had in my hand; and I wanted
to pray for her conversion that night the same as my mother made me pray
for yours; and--

SIR PEARCE [scandalized]. Do you mean to say that your mother made you
pray for MY conversion?

O'FLAHERTY. Sure and she wouldn't want to see a gentleman like you going
to hell after she nursing your own son and bringing up my sister Annie
on the bottle. That was how it was, sir. She'd rob you; and she'd lie to
you; and she'd call down all the blessings of God on your head when she
was selling you your own three geese that you thought had been ate by
the fox the day after you'd finished fattening them, sir; and all the
time you were like a bit of her own flesh and blood to her. Often has
she said she'd live to see you a good Catholic yet, leading victorious
armies against the English and wearing the collar of gold that Malachi
won from the proud invader. Oh, she's the romantic woman is my mother,
and no mistake.

SIR PEARCE [in great perturbation]. I really can't believe this,
O'Flaherty. I could have sworn your mother was as honest a woman as ever
breathed.

O'FLAHERTY. And so she is, sir. She's as honest as the day.

SIR PEARCE. Do you call it honest to steal my geese?

O'FLAHERTY. She didn't steal them, sir. It was me that stole them.

SIR PEARCE. Oh! And why the devil did you steal them?

O'FLAHERTY. Sure we needed them, sir. Often and often we had to sell our
own geese to pay you the rent to satisfy your needs; and why shouldn't
we sell your geese to satisfy ours?

SIR PEARCE. Well, damn me!

O'FLAHERTY [sweetly]. Sure you had to get what you could out of us; and
we had to get what we could out of you. God forgive us both!

SIR PEARCE. Really, O'Flaherty, the war seems to have upset you a
little.

O'FLAHERTY. It's set me thinking, sir; and I'm not used to it. It's like
the patriotism of the English. They never thought of being patriotic
until the war broke out; and now the patriotism has took them so
sudden and come so strange to them that