half a potato. He won’t complain to Grandma because he hardly ever talks outside of a snuffle or two. It’s better if I eat the other half potato so that he won’t be asking why he got a half. I might as well try the bacon and cabbage too and if I eat the other potato he’ll surely think she didn’t send one at all. The second potato melts in my mouth and I’ll have to try another bit of cabbage, another morsel of bacon.There isn’t much left now and he’ll be very suspicious so I might as well finish off the rest. What am I going to do now? Grandma will destroy me, Mam will keep me in for a year. Bill Galvin will bury me in lime. I’ll tell him I was attacked by a dog on the Dock Road and he ate the whole dinner and I’m lucky I escaped without being eaten myself. Oh, is that so? says Bill Galvin.And what’s that bit of cabbage hang- ing on your gansey? Did the dog lick you wit his cabbagey gob? Go home and tell your grandmother you ate me whole dinner and I’m falling down with the hunger here in this lime kiln. She’ll kill me. Tell her don’t kill you till she sends me some class of a dinner and if you don’t go to her now and get me a dinner I’ll kill you and throw your body into the lime there and there won’t be much left for your mother to moan over. Grandma says, What are you doin’ back with that can? He could bring that back by himself. He wants more dinner. What do you mean more dinner? Jesus above, is it a hole he has in his leg? He’s falling down with the hunger below in the lime kiln. Is it coddin’ me you are? He says send him any class of a dinner. I will not. I sent him his dinner. He didn’t get it. He didn’t? Why not? I ate it. What? I was hungry and I tasted it and I couldn’t stop. Jesus, Mary and holy St. Joseph. She gives me a clout on the head that brings tears to my eyes. She screams at me like a banshee and jumps around the kitchen and threat- 137