I can, Mr. McCaffrey. You can read and write but can you do addition and subtraction? I can, Mr. McCaffrey. Well, I don’t know what the policy is on sore eyes. I would have to ring Dublin and see where they stand on sore eyes. But your writing is clear, McCourt.A good fist.We’ll take you on pending the decision on the sore eyes. Monday morning. Half six at the railway station. In the morning? In the morning.We don’t give out the bloody morning papers at night, do we? No, Mr. McCaffrey. Another thing.We distribute The Irish Times, a Protestant paper, run by the freemasons in Dublin.We pick it up at the railway station.We count it.We take it to the newsagents. But we don’t read it. I don’t want to see you reading it.You could lose the Faith and by the look of those eyes you could lose your sight. Do you hear me, McCourt? I do, Mr. McCaffrey. No IrishTimes, and when you come in next week I’ll tell you about all the English filth you’re not to read in this office. Do you hear me? I do, Mr. McCaffrey. Mrs. O’Connell has the tight mouth and she won’t look at me. She says to Miss Barry, I hear a certain upstart from the lanes walked away from the post office exam.Too good for it, I suppose. True for you, says Miss Barry. Too good for us, I suppose. True for you. Do you think he’d ever tell us why he didn’t take the exam? Oh, he might, says Miss Barry, if we went down on our two knees. I tell her, I want to go to America, Mrs. O’Connell. Did you hear that, Miss Barry? I did, indeed, Mrs. O’Connell. He spoke. He did, indeed. He will rue the day, Miss Barry. Rue he will, Mrs. O’Connell. Mrs. O’Connell talks past me to the boys waiting on the bench for 336