You’ll understand when you grow up. Everything will come when you grow up. He lets out such a roar of a laugh I think he’s going to collapse. Oh, Mother o’ God, Francis.You’re a treasure.What’s up with you? Do you have a bee up your arse? Tell me what’s up. Nothing, Mr.Timoney. I think you have the long puss, Francis, and I wish I could see it. Go over to the mirror on the wall, Snow White, and tell me if you have the long puss. Never mind. Just tell me what’s up. Declan Collopy was at me last night and I got into a fight. He makes me tell him about the Confraternity and Declan and my uncle Pat Sheehan, who was dropped on his head, and then he tells me he knows my uncle Pa Keating, who was gassed in the war and works in the gas works. He says, Pa Keating is a jewel of a man.And I’ll tell you what  I’ll  do,  Francis.  I’ll  talk  to  Pa  Keating  and  we’ll  go  to  the crawthumpers at the Confraternity. I’m a Buddhist myself and I don’t hold with fighting but I haven’t lost it.They’re not going to interfere with my little reader, oh, by Jesus, no. Mr.Timoney is an old man but he talks like a friend and I can say what I feel. Dad would never talk to me like Mr. Timoney. He’d say, Och, aye, and go for a long walk. Uncle Pat Sheehan tells Grandma he doesn’t want me to help with the  papers  anymore,  he  can  get  another  boy  much  cheaper  and  he thinks I should be giving him some of my Saturday morning sixpence anyway since I’d never have the reading job without him. A woman next door to Mr.Timoney tells me I’m wasting my time knocking on the door, Macushla bit the postman, the milkman and a passing nun on the same day and Mr.Timoney couldn’t stop laughing though he cried when the dog was taken away to be put down.You can bite postmen and milkmen all you like but the case of the passing nun goes all the way to the bishop and he takes steps especially if the owner of the dog is a known Buddhist and a danger to good Catholics around him. Mr.Timoney was told this and cried and laughed so hard the  doctor  came  and  said  he  was  gone  beyond  recall  so  they  carted him off to the City Home, where they keep old people who are help- less or demented. That’s the end of my Saturday sixpence but I’ll read to Mr.Timo- ney money or no money. I wait down the street till the woman next 178