Page:Plays in Prose and Verse (1922).djvu/58

42 to give me a penny. [Holds out his hand.] If I wasn’t lucky, I’d starve.

. What have you got the shears for?

. I won’t tell you. If I told you, you would drive them away.

. Whom would I drive away?

. I won’t tell you.

. Not if I give you a penny?

. No.

. Not if I give you two pennies?

. You will be very lucky if you give me two pennies, but I won’t tell you!

. Three pennies?

. Four, and I will tell you!

. Very well, four. But I will not call you Teigue the Fool any longer.

. Let me come close to you where nobody will hear me. But first you must promise you will not drive them away. [ nods.] Every day men go out dressed in black and spread great black nets over the hills, great black nets.

. Why do they do that?

. That they may catch the feet of the angels. But every morning, just before the dawn, I go out and cut the nets with my shears, and the angels fly away.

. Ah, now I know that you are Teigue the Fool. You have told me that I am wise, and I have never seen an angel.