say. I drink the odd pint of milk and leave the bottle so that the milk- man won’t be blamed for not delivering. I like milkmen because one of them gave me two broken eggs which I swallowed raw with bits of shells and all. He said I’d grow up powerful if I had nothing else but two eggs in a pint of porter every day. Everything you need is in the egg and everything you want is in the pint. Some houses get better bread than others. It costs more and that’s what I take.I feel sorry for the rich people who will get up in the morn- ing and go to the door and find their bread missing but I can’t let myself starve to death.If I starve I’ll never have the strength for my telegram boy job at the post office, which means I’ll have no money to put back all that bread and milk and no way of saving to go to America and if I can’t go to America I might as well jump into the River Shannon. It’s only a few weeks till I get my first wages in the post office and surely these rich people won’t collapse with the hunger till then.They can always send the maid out for more.That’s the difference between the poor and the rich. The poor can’t send out for more because there’s no money to send out for more and if there was they wouldn’t have a maid to send. It’s the maids I have to worry about.I have to be careful when I borrow the milk and the bread and they’re at the front doors polishing knobs, knockers and letter boxes. If they see me they’ll be running to the woman of the house, Oh, madam, madam, there’s an urchin beyant that’s makin’ off with all the milk and bread. Beyant. Maids talk like that because they’re all from the country, Mullingar heifers, says Paddy Clohessy’s uncle, beef to the heels, and they wouldn’t give you the steam of their piss. I bring home the bread and even if The Abbot is surprised he doesn’t say,Where did you get it? because he was dropped on his head and that knocks the curiosity out of you. He just looks at me with his big eyes that are blue in the middle and yellow all around and slurps his tea from the great cracked mug his mother left behind.He tells me,That’s me mug and don’t be drinkin’ your tay oush of ish. Oush of ish.That’s the Limerick slum talk that always worried Dad. He said, I don’t want my sons growing up in a Limerick lane saying, Oush of ish. It’s common and low-class. Say out of it properly. And Mam said, I hope it keeps fine for you but you’re not doing much to get us oush of ish. . . . 300