I think it means this is your last chance. I write five more letters and she gives me money for stamps. On my way to the post office I think,Why should I squander money on stamps when I have two legs to deliver the letters myself in the dead of night? When you’re poor a threatening letter is a threatening letter no matter how it comes in the door. I run through the lanes of Limerick shoving letters under doors, praying no one will see me. The next week Mrs. Finucane is squealing with joy. Four of ’em paid. Oh, sit down now and write more, by. Put the fear of God in ’em. Week after week my threatening letters grow sharper and sharper. I begin to throw in words I hardly understand myself. Dear Mrs. O’Brien, Inasmuch as you have not succumbed to the imminence of litigation in our previous epistle be advised that we are in consultation with our barrister above in Dublin. Next week Mrs. O’Brien pays. She came in tremblin’ with tears in her eyes, by, and she promised she’d never miss another payment. On Friday nights Mrs. Finucane sends me to a pub for a bottle of sherry.You’re too young for sherry, by.You can make yourself a nice cup of tea but you have to use the tea leaves left over from this morning.No, you can’t have a piece of bread with the prices they’re charging. Bread is it? Next thing you’ll be asking for an egg. She rocks by the fire, sipping her sherry, counting the money in the purse  on  her  lap,  entering  payments  in  her  ledger  before  she  locks everything in the trunk under her bed upstairs.After a few sherries she tells me what a lovely thing it is to have a little money so you can leave it to the Church for Masses to be said for the repose of your soul. It makes her so happy to think of priests saying Masses for her years and years after she’s dead and buried. Sometimes she falls asleep and if the purse drops to the floor I help myself to an extra few shillings for the overtime and the use of all the big new words.There will be less money for the priests and their Masses but how many Masses does a soul need and surely I’m entitled to a few pounds  after  the  way  the  Church  slammed  doors  in  my  face? They wouldn’t let me be an altar boy, a secondary school pupil, a missionary with the White Fathers. I don’t care. I have a post office savings account 332