adventures. If I didn’t have these two legs I’d be over in England mak- ing a fortune in the factories like the rest of the Irishmen, like your father. No, not like your father. I hear he left you high and dry, eh? I don’t know how a man in his right mind can go off and leave a wife and family to starve and shiver in a Limerick winter. School, Frankie, school. The books, the books, the books. Get out of Limerick before your legs rot and your mind collapses entirely. The horse clops along and when we get to the coal yard we feed and water him and give him a rubdown. Mr. Hannon talks to him all the  time  and  calls  him  Me  oul’ segosha, and  the  horse  snuffles  and pushes his nose against Mr. Hannon’s chest. I’d love to bring this horse home and let him stay downstairs when we’re up in Italy but even if I could get him in the door my mother would yell at me that the last thing we need in this house is a horse. The streets going up from the Dock Road are too hilly for Mr. Hannon to ride the bicycle and carry me, so we walk. His legs are sore from the day and it takes a long time to get up to Henry Street.He leans on the bicycle or sits on the steps outside houses, grinding down on the pipe in his mouth. I’m wondering when I’ll get the money for the day’s work because Mam might let me go to the Lyric Cinema if I get home in time with my shilling or whatever Mr. Hannon gives me. Now we’re at the door of  South’s  pub  and  he  tells  me  come  in,  didn’t  he  promise  me  a lemonade? Uncle Pa Keating is sitting in the pub.He’s all black as usual and he’s sitting next to Bill Galvin, all white as usual, snuffling and taking great slugs out of his black pint. Mr. Hannon says, How’re you? and sits on the other side of Bill Galvin and everyone in the pub laughs. Jaysus, says the barman, look at that, two lumps of coal and a snowball. Men come in from other parts of the pub to see the two coal-black men with the lime-white man in the middle and they want to send down to the Lim- erick Leader for a man with a camera. Uncle Pa says,What are you doing all black yourself, Frankie? Did you fall down a coal mine? I was helping Mr. Hannon on the float. Your eyes look atrocious, Frankie. Piss holes in the snow. ’Tis the coal dust, Uncle Pa. Wash them when you go home. 260