s an old financial hand, must be
inspiration]; you will get rid of its original shareholders
efficiently after efficiently ruining them; and you will finally
profit very efficiently by getting that hotel for a few shillings
in the pound. [More and more sternly] Besides those efficient
operations, you will foreclose your mortgages most efficiently
[his rebuking forefinger goes up in spite of himself]; you will
drive Haffigan to America very efficiently; you will find a use
for Barney Doran's foul mouth and bullying temper by employing
him to slave-drive your laborers very efficiently; and [low and
bitter] when at last this poor desolate countryside becomes a
busy mint in which we shall all slave to make money for you, with
our Polytechnic to teach us how to do it efficiently, and our
library to fuddle the few imaginations your distilleries will
spare, and our repaired Round Tower with admission sixpence, and
refreshments and penny-in-the-slot mutoscopes to make it
interesting, then no doubt your English and American shareholders
will spend all the money we make for them very efficiently in
shooting and hunting, in operations for cancer and appendicitis,
in gluttony and gambling; and you will devote what they save to
fresh land development schemes. For four wicked centuries the
world has dreamed this foolish dream of efficiency; and the end
is not yet. But the end will come.

BROADBENT [seriously]. Too true, Mr Keegan, only too true. And
most eloquently put. It reminds me of poor Ruskin--a great man,
you know. I sympathize. Believe me, I'm on your side. Don't
sneer, Larry: I used to read a lot of Shelley years ago. Let us
be faithful to the dreams of our youth [he wafts a wreath of
cigar smoke at large across the hill].

KEEGAN. Come, Mr Doyle! is this English sentiment so much more
efficient than our Irish sentiment, after all? Mr Broadbent
spends his life inefficiently admiring the thoughts of great men,
and efficiently serving the cupidity of base money hunters. We
spend our lives efficiently sneering at him and doing nothing.
Which of us has any right to reproach the other?

BROADBENT [coming down the hill again to Keegan's right hand].
But you know, something must be done.

KEEGAN. Yes: when we cease to do, we cease to live. Well, what
shall we do?

BROADBENT. Why, what lies to our hand.

KEEGAN. Which is the making of golf links and hotels to bring
idlers to a country which workers have left in millions be