The next Friday Declan Collopy from the Confraternity sees me on the street delivering the papers with my uncle Pat Sheehan. Hoi, Frankie McCourt, what are you doin’ with Ab Sheehan? He’s my uncle. You’re supposed to be at the Confraternity. I’m working, Declan. You’re not supposed to be working. You’re not even ten and you’re destroyin’ the perfect attendance in our section. If you’re not there next Friday I’ll give you a good thump in the gob, do you hear me? Uncle Pat says, Go ’way, go ’way, or I’ll walk on you. Ah, shut up, Mr. Stupid that was dropped on your head. He pushes Uncle Pat on the shoulder and knocks him back against the wall. I drop the papers and run at him but he steps aside and punches me on the back of the neck and my forehead is rammed into the wall and it puts me in such a rage I can’t see him anymore. I go at him with arms and legs and if I could tear his face off with my teeth I would but he has long arms like a gorilla and he just keeps pushing me away so that I can’t touch him. He says,You mad feckin’ eejit. I’ll destroy you in the Con- fraternity, and he runs away. Uncle Pat says,You shouldn’t be fightin’ like that an’ you dropped all me papers an’ some o’ them is wet an’ how am I supposed to sell wet papers, and I wanted to jump on him too and hit him for talking about papers after I stood up to Declan Collopy. At the end of the night he gives me three chips from his bag and sixpence instead of threepence. He complains it’s too much money and it’s all my mother’s fault for going on to Grandma about the low pay. Mam is delighted I’m getting sixpence on Fridays from Uncle Pat and sixpence on Saturdays from Mr.Timoney.A shilling a week makes a big difference and she gives me tuppence to see the Dead End Kids at the Lyric after I’m finished the reading. Next morning Mr.Timoney says,Wait till we get to Gulliver, Fran- cis. You’ll  know  Jonathan  Swift  is  the  greatest  Irish  writer  that  ever lived, no, the greatest man to put pen to parchment.A giant of a man, Francis.He laughs all through A Modest Proposal and you’d wonder what he’s laughing at when it’s all about cooking Irish babies. He says,You’ll laugh when you grow up, Francis. You’re  not  supposed  to  talk  back  to  grown-ups  but  Mr. Timo- ney  is  different  and  he  doesn’t  mind  when  I  say,  Mr. Timoney,  big people are always telling us that. Oh, you’ll laugh when you grow up. 177