The Drone | Page 2

a tray with teacups, &c., on it. She is a pretty, vivacious girl
about eighteen years of age.)
MARY. Who was that?
KATE. It's the servant man looking for a spanner for your father, Miss
Mary. There's something gone wrong with the threshing machine.
MARY (taking the tray to the table and starting to get ready to wash
up the cups). I do believe sometimes that Uncle Dan's a lazy man.
KATE (assisting her at the washing and stopping as if astonished at

the statement). And is it only now you're after finding that out! Sure the
whole countryside knowed it this years and years.
MARY (sharply). The whole countryside has no business to talk about
what doesn't concern it.
KATE. Oh, well, people are bound to talk, Miss.
MARY. But then Uncle Dan is awfully clever. He's got the whole
brains of the Murrays, so father says, and then, besides that, he is a
grand talker.
KATE. Aye. He can talk plenty. Sure Sarah McMinn, that lives up the
Cut, says its a shame the way he's going on this twenty years and more,
never doing a hand's turn from morning to night, and she says she
wonders your poor father stands him and his nonsense.
MARY. Who said that?
KATE. Sarah McMinn told Johnny McAndless that yesterday.
MARY. Sarah McMinn? Pooh! That hard, mean, old thing. No. I
believe in Uncle Dan and so does father. He'll make a name for himself
yet.
KATE. Well, it's getting near time he done it.
MARY. And that Sarah McMinn they say just keeps her brother in
starvation, and she just says nasty things like that about Uncle Dan
because he doesn't like her.
KATE. Aye. He never did like people as seen through him, not but she
is a mean old skin-a-louse. (The voice of DANIEL MURRAY is heard
calling from within.) He's up, Miss.
MARY. Are you up, uncle?
(DAN MURRAY opens the door from the inner apartments and comes
into the kitchen. He is carelessly dressed and sleepy-looking as if just

out of bed, wears a muffler and glasses, and appears to be some fifty
years of age.)
DANIEL. Yes. Did the Whig come yet?
MARY. Yes. I put it in your workshop.
DANIEL (glancing at the clock). Bless my heart, it's half-past one!
MARY (reproachfully). It is, indeed, uncle.
DANIEL. Well! Well! Time goes round, Mary. Time goes round. (Kate
picks up the bucket and goes out by the yard door.) Where's your father?
(He crosses over to the workshop door.)
MARY. He's out working with Sam Brown at the threshing all morning
since seven o'clock.
DANIEL. Well! Well! A very industrious man is John Murray. Very.
But lacking in brains, my dear--lacking in brains. Kind, good-hearted,
easy-going, but--ah! well, one can't help these things. (He goes towards
the workshop.) Where did you say the Whig was, Mary?
MARY. It's in your workshop. (He crosses over to go there.)
MARY. You were very late coming in last night, uncle.
DANIEL. Eh? (He goes in, gets the paper, comes out again.)
MARY. I heard you coming in, and the clock was just after striking
two. (He sits down and opens paper.)
DANIEL. Well--I met a few friends last night. Appreciative friends I
could talk to, and I was explaining that new idea of mine that I've been
working at so long--that new idea for a fan-bellows. It's a great thing.
Oh yes. It should be. I sat up quite a while last night, thinking it over,
and I believe I've got more ideas about it--better ones.
MARY. Do you think you'll make money off it, uncle?

DANIEL. Mary--if it comes off--if I can get someone to take it up, I
believe 'twill make our fortune, I do.
MARY. Oh, uncle, it would be lovely if you did, and I would just die to
see that nasty McMinn woman's face when she hears about you making
such a hit.
DANIEL. McMinn? Has that woman been sneering about me again?
That's one woman, Mary, I can't stand. I can never do myself justice
explaining ideas in company when that woman is present.
MARY. Never mind her, uncle. (Coming close beside him.) Do you
mind the time last time, uncle, when you went up to Belfast for a week
to see about that patent for--what's this the patent was, uncle?
DANIEL (uncomfortably). Last time? Aye? Why?
MARY. Yes. Don't you remember you said you knew of an awfully
nice boy that you met, and you were going to bring him down here.
DANIEL. Upon my soul, I had clean forgotten. Yes, yes. I think I did
say something about a young fellow I met.
MARY. Was he nice, uncle?
DANIEL (becoming absorbed in the newspaper). Eh? I think so. Oh.
He was--very nice chap.