But sure, she shouldn't keep you waiting, sir.
SIR PEARCE. Oh, that's all right: she must be indulged on an
occasion like this. I'm sorry my wife is in London: she'd have
been glad to welcome your mother.
O'FLAHERTY. Sure, I know she would, sir. She was always a kind
friend to the poor. Little her ladyship knew, God help her, the
depth of divilment that was 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.
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