the butcher after dark, climbs the wall, cuts the tongue of a sheep’s head that’s on a hook on the wall and brings it back to his poor father in the bed. Of course I have to boil that tongue with salt galore and Dennis, God love him, ates it, lies back in the bed a minute, throws back the blanket and stands out on his two feet announcing to the world that consumption or no consumption, he’s not going to die in that bed, if he’s going to die at all it might as well be under a German bomb with him making a few pounds for his family instead of whining in the bed there beyond. She  shows  me  a  letter  from  Paddy.  He’s  working  in  his  uncle Anthony’s  pub  twelve  hours  a  day, twenty-five  shillings  a  week  and every  day  soup  and  a  sandwich.  He’s  delighted  when  the  Germans come over with the bombs so that he can sleep while the pub is closed. At night he sleeps on the floor of the hallway upstairs. He will send his mother two pounds every month and he’s saving the rest to bring her and the family to England where they’ll be much better off in one room in Cricklewood than ten rooms in Arthur’s Quay. She’ll be able to get a job no bother.You’d have to be a sad case not to be able to get a job in a country that’s at war especially with Yanks pouring in and spend- ing money right and left. Paddy himself is planning to get a job in the middle of London where Yanks leave tips big enough to feed an Irish family of six for a week. Mrs. Clohessy says,We have enough money for food and shoes at last, thanks be to God and His Blessed Mother.You’ll never guess who Paddy met over there in England fourteen years of age an’ workin’ like a man. Brendan Kiely, the one ye used to call Question.Workin’ he is an’ savin’ so he can go an’ join the Mounties an’ ride all over Canada like Nelson Eddy singin’ I’ll be callin’ you ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh. If it wasn’t for Hitler we’d all be dead an’ isn’t that a terrible thing to say. And how’s your poor mother, Frankie? She’s grand, Mrs. Clohessy. No, she’s  not. I  seen  her  in  the  Dispensary  and  she  looks  worse than   my   Dennis   did   in   the   bed.  You   have   to   mind   your   poor mother.You look desperate too, Frankie, with them two red eyes starin’ outa your head. Here’s a little tip for you.Thruppence. Buy yourself a sweet.MM I will, Mrs. Clohessy. Do. 313