Mary: Ha! ha! ha! It is a very laughable thing now, the third most laughable thing I ever met with in my lifetime.

Hyacinth Halvey: What is that?

Cracked Mary: A fine young man to be shut up and bound in a narrow little shed, and the full moon rising, and I knowing what I know!

Hyacinth Halvey: It's little you are likely to know about me.

Cracked Mary: Tambourines and fiddles and pipes—melodeons and the whistling of drums.

Hyacinth Halvey: I suppose it is the Carrow fair you are talking about.

Cracked Mary: Sitting within walls, and a top-coat wrapped around him, and mirth and music and frolic being in the place we know, and some dancing sets on the floor.

Hyacinth Halvey: I wish I wasn't in this place tonight. I would like well to be going on the train, if it wasn't for the talk the neighbours would be making. I would like well to slip away. It is a long time I am going without any sort of funny comrades.

(Goes to door. The others enter quickly, pushing him back.)

Bartley Fallon: Nothing at all to see. It would be best for us to have stopped where we were.

Mrs. Broderick: Running like foals to see it, and nothing to be in it worth while.

Hyacinth Halvey: What was it was in it?

Shawn Early: Nothing at all but some lads that were running in pursuit of a dog.

Bartley Fallon: Near knocked us they did, and they coming round the corner of the wall.

Hyacinth Halvey: Is it that it was a mad dog?

Peter Tannian: Ah, what mad? Mad dogs are done away with now by the head Government and muzzles and the police.

Bartley Fallon: They are more watchful over them than they used. But all the same, you to see a strange dog afar off, you would be uneasy, thinking it might be yourself he would be searching out as his prey.

Mrs. Broderick: Sure, there did a dog go mad through Galway, and the whole town rose against him, and flocked him into a corner, and shot him there. He did no harm after, he being made an end of at the first.

Shawn Early: It might be that dog they were pursuing after was mad, on the head of being under the full moon.

Cracked Mary: (Jumping up excitedly.) That mad dog, he is a Dublin dog; he is betune you and Belfast—he is running ahead—you couldn't keep up with him.

Hyacinth Halvey: There is one, so, mad upon the road.

Cracked Mary: There is police after him, but they cannot come up with him; he destroyed a splendid sow; nine bonavs they buried or less.

Shawn Early: What place is he gone now?

Cracked Mary: He made off towards Craughwell, and he bit a fine young man.

Bartley Fallen: So he would too. Sure, when a mad dog would be going about, on horseback or wherever you are, you're ruined.

Cracked Mary: That dog is going on all the time; he wouldn't stop, but go ahead and bring that mouthful with him. He is still on the road; he is keeping the middle of the road; they say he is as big as a calf.

Hyacinth Halvey: It is the police I have a right to forewarn to go after him.

Cracked Mary: The motor cars is going to get out to track him, for fear he would destroy the world!

Mrs. Broderick: That is a very nice thought now, to be sending the motor cars after him to overturn and to crush him the same as an ass-car in their path.

Cracked Mary: You can't save yourself from a dog; he is after his own equals, dogs. He is doing every harm. They are out night and day.

Shawn Early: Sure, a mad dog would go from this to Kinvara in a half a minute, like the train.

Cracked Mary: He won't stay in this country down—he goes the straight road—he takes by the wind. He is as big as a yearling calf.

Mrs. Broderick: I wouldn't ever forgive myself I to see him.

Cracked Mary: He is not very heavy yet. There is only the relics in him.

Hyacinth Halvey: They have a right to bring their rifles in their hand.

Cracked Mary: The police is afraid of their life. They wrote for motor cars to follow him. Sure, he'd destroy the beasts of the field. A milch cow, he to grab at her, she's settled. Terrible wicked he is; he's as big as five dogs, and he does be very strong. I hope in the Lord he'll be caught. It will be a blessing from the Almighty God to kill that dog.

Hyacinth Halvey: He is surely the one is raging through the street.

Peter Tannian: Why wouldn't he be him? Is it likely there would be two of them in it at the one time?

Shawn Early: A queer cut of a dog he was; a lurcher, a bastard hound.

Peter Tannian: I would say him to be about the size of the foal of a horse.

Mrs. Broderick: Didn't he behave well not to do ourselves an injury?

Bartley Fallon: It is likely he will do great destruction. I wouldn't say but I felt the weight of him and his two paws around my neck.

Hyacinth Halvey: I will go out following him.

Shawn Early: (Holding him). Oh, let you not endanger yourself! It is the peelers should go follow him, that are armed with their batons and their guns.

Hyacinth Halvey: I'll go. He might do some injury going through the town.

Mrs. Broderick: Ah now, it is not yourself we would let go into danger! It is Peter Tannian should go, if any person should go.

Peter Tannian: Is it Hyacinth Halvey you are taking to be so far before myself?

Mrs. Broderick: Why wouldn't he be before you?

Peter Tannian: Ask him what was he in Carrow? Ask was he a sort of a corner-boy, ringing the bell, pumping water, gathering a few coppers in the daytime for to scatter on a game of cards.

Hyacinth Halvey: Stop your lies and your chat!

Mrs. Broderick: (to Tannian) You are going light in the head to talk that way.

Shawn Early: He is, and queer in the mind. Take care did he get a bite from the dog, that left some venom working in his blood.

Hyacinth Halvey: So he might, and he having a sort of a little rent in his sleeve.

Peter Tannian: I to have got a bite from the dog, is it? I did not come anear him at all. You to strip me as bare as winter you will not find the track of his teeth. It is Shawn Early was nearer to him than what I was.

Shawn Early: I was not nearer, or as near as what Mrs. Broderick was.

Mrs. Broderick: I made away when I saw him. My chest is not the better of it yet. Since I left off fretting I got gross. I am that nervous I would run from a blessed sheep, let alone a dog.

Shawn Early: To see any of the signs of madness upon him, it is Mr. Halvey the sergeant would look to for to make his report.

Hyacinth Halvey: So I would make a report.

Peter Tannian: Is it that you lay down you can see signs? Is that the learning they were giving you in Carrow?

Mrs. Broderick: Don't be speaking with him at all. It is easy know the signs. A person to