Dubliners | Page 8

round
in the same orbit. At times he spoke as if he were simply alluding to
some fact that everybody knew, and at times he lowered his voice and
spoke mysteriously as if he were telling us something secret which he
did not wish others to overhear. He repeated his phrases over and over
again, varying them and surrounding them with his monotonous voice.
I continued to gaze towards the foot of the slope, listening to him.
After a long while his monologue paused. He stood up slowly, saying
that he had to leave us for a minute or so, a few minutes, and, without
changing the direction of my gaze, I saw him walking slowly away
from us towards the near end of the field. We remained silent when he
had gone. After a silence of a few minutes I heard Mahony exclaim:
"I say! Look what he's doing!"
As I neither answered nor raised my eyes Mahony exclaimed again:
"I say... He's a queer old josser!"
"In case he asks us for our names," I said "let you be Murphy and I'll be
Smith."
We said nothing further to each other. I was still considering whether I
would go away or not when the man came back and sat down beside us

again. Hardly had he sat down when Mahony, catching sight of the cat
which had escaped him, sprang up and pursued her across the field. The
man and I watched the chase. The cat escaped once more and Mahony
began to throw stones at the wall she had escaladed. Desisting from this,
he began to wander about the far end of the field, aimlessly.
After an interval the man spoke to me. He said that my friend was a
very rough boy and asked did he get whipped often at school. I was
going to reply indignantly that we were not National School boys to be
whipped, as he called it; but I remained silent. He began to speak on the
subject of chastising boys. His mind, as if magnetised again by his
speech, seemed to circle slowly round and round its new centre. He
said that when boys were that kind they ought to be whipped and well
whipped. When a boy was rough and unruly there was nothing would
do him any good but a good sound whipping. A slap on the hand or a
box on the ear was no good: what he wanted was to get a nice warm
whipping. I was surprised at this sentiment and involuntarily glanced
up at his face. As I did so I met the gaze of a pair of bottle-green eyes
peering at me from under a twitching forehead. I turned my eyes away
again.
The man continued his monologue. He seemed to have forgotten his
recent liberalism. He said that if ever he found a boy talking to girls or
having a girl for a sweetheart he would whip him and whip him; and
that would teach him not to be talking to girls. And if a boy had a girl
for a sweetheart and told lies about it then he would give him such a
whipping as no boy ever got in this world. He said that there was
nothing in this world he would like so well as that. He described to me
how he would whip such a boy as if he were unfolding some elaborate
mystery. He would love that, he said, better than anything in this world;
and his voice, as he led me monotonously through the mystery, grew
almost affectionate and seemed to plead with me that I should
understand him.
I waited till his monologue paused again. Then I stood up abruptly.
Lest I should betray my agitation I delayed a few moments pretending
to fix my shoe properly and then, saying that I was obliged to go, I

bade him good-day. I went up the slope calmly but my heart was
beating quickly with fear that he would seize me by the ankles. When I
reached the top of the slope I turned round and, without looking at him,
called loudly across the field:
"Murphy!"
My voice had an accent of forced bravery in it and I was ashamed of
my paltry stratagem. I had to call the name again before Mahony saw
me and hallooed in answer. How my heart beat as he came running
across the field to me! He ran as if to bring me aid. And I was penitent;
for in my heart I had always despised him a little.
ARABY
NORTH RICHMOND STREET being blind, was a quiet street except
at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys free. An
uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end, detached