_Hyacinth Halvey: (Throwing off top-coat.)_ You cannot keep me here.

_Peter Tannian:_ Give me a hand with the chain.

_(They throw it round Hyacinth and hold him.)_

_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Is it out of your senses you are gone?

_Peter Tannian:_ Not at all, but yourself that is gone raving mad from the fury and the strength of some dog.

_Miss Joyce: (At door.)_ Are you there, Hyacinth Halvey? The train is in. Come forward now, and give a welcome to his Reverence.

_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Let me go out of this!

_Miss Joyce:_ You are near late as it is. The train is about to start.

_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Let me go, or I'll tear the heart out of ye!

_Shawn Early:_ Oh, he is stark, staring mad!

_Hyacinth Halvey:_ Mad, am I? Bit by a dog, am I? You'll see am I mad! I'll show madness to you! Let go your hold or I'll skin you!

I'll destroy you! I'll bite you! I'm a red enemy to the whole of you!

Leave go your grip! Yes, I'm mad! Bow wow wow, wow wow!

_(They let go and fall back in terror, and he rushes out of the door.)_

_Miss Joyce:_ What at all has happened? Where is he gone?

_Shawn Early:_ To the train he is gone, and away in it he is gone.

_Miss Joyce:_ He gave some sort of a bark or a howl.

_Shawn Early:_ He is gone clean mad. Great arguing he had, and leaping and roaring.

_Bartley Fallon:_ _(Taking off crate.)_ He went very near to tear us all asunder. I declare I amn't worth a match.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ He made a reel in my head, till I don't know am I right myself.

_Shawn Early:_ Bawling his life out, tearing his clothes, tearing and eating them. Look at his top-coat he left after him.

_Bartley Fallon:_ He poured all over with pure white foam.

_Peter Tannian:_ There now is an end of your elegant man.

_Shawn Early:_ Bit he was with the mad dog that went tearing, and lads chasing him a while ago.

_Miss Joyce:_ Sure that was Tannian's own dog, that had a bit of meat snapped from Quirke's a.s.s-car. He is without this door now.

_(All look out.)_ He has the appearance of having a full meal taken.

_Bartley Fallon:_ And they to be saying I went mad. That is the way always, and a thing to be tasked to me that was not in it at all.

_Mrs. Broderick:_ _(Laying her hand on Miss Joyce's shoulder.)_ Take comfort now; and if it was the moon done all, and has your bachelor swept, let you not begrudge it its full share of praise for the hand it had in banishing a strange bird, might have gone wild and bawling like eleven, and you after being wed with him, and would maybe have put a match to the roof. And hadn't you the luck of the world now, that you did not give notice to the priest!

_Curtain_

COATS

_Hazel_ EDITOR OF "CHAMPION"

_Mineog_ EDITOR OF "TRIBUNE"

_John_ A WAITER

_Scene: Dining room of Royal Hotel Cloonmore_.

_Hazel: (Coming in.)_ Did Mr. Mineog come yet, John?

_John:_ He did not, Mr. Hazel. Ah, he won't be long coming. It's seldom he does be late.

_Hazel:_ Is the dinner ready?

_John:_ It is, sir. Boiled beef and parsnips, the same as every Monday for all comers, and an apple pie for yourself and Mr. Mineog.

_Mineog: (Coming in.)_ Mr. Hazel is the first tonight. I'm glad to see you looking so good.

_(They take off coats and give to waiter.)_

_Mineog:_ Put that on its own peg.

_Hazel:_ And mine on its own peg to the rear.

_John:_ I will, sir.

_(He drops coats in putting them up. Then notices broken pane in window and picks up the coats hurriedly, putting them on wrong pegs. Hazel and Mineog have sat down.)_

_Hazel:_ Have you any strange news?

_Mineog:_ I have but the same news I always have, that it is quick Monday comes around, and that it is hard make provision for to fill up the four sheets of the _Tribune_, and nothing happening in these parts worth while. There would seem to be no news on this day beyond all days of the year.

_Hazel:_ Sure there is the same care and the same burden on myself.

I wish I didn't put a supplement to the _Champion_. The deer knows what way will I fill it between this and Thursday, or in what place I can go questing after news!

_Mineog:_ Last week pa.s.sed without anything doing. It is a very backward place to give information for two papers. If it was not for the league is between us, and for us meeting here on every Monday to make sure we are taking different sides on every question may turn up, and giving every abuse to one another in print, there is no person would pay his penny for the two of them, or it may be for the one of them.

_Hazel:_ That is so. And the worst is, there is no question ever rises that we do not agree on, or that would have power to make us fall out in earnest. It was different in my early time. The questions used to rise up then were worth fighting for.

_Mineog:_ There are some people so cantankerous they will heat themselves in argument as to which side might be right or wrong in a war, or if wars should be in it at all, or hangings.