CHRISTY -- [loudly, scandalized.] -- Do you take me for a slaughter-boy?
PEGEEN. You never hanged him, the way Jimmy Farrell hanged his dog from the
license, and had it screeching and wriggling three hours at the butt of a
string, and himself swearing it was a dead dog, and the peelers swearing it
had life?
CHRISTY. I did not then. I just riz the loy and let fall the edge of it on
the ridge of his skull, and he went down at my feet like an empty sack, and
never let a grunt or groan from him at all.
MICHAEL -- [making a sign to Pegeen to fill Christy's glass.] -- And what way
weren't you hanged, mister? Did you bury him then?
CHRISTY -- [considering.] Aye. I buried him then. Wasn't I digging spuds in
the field?
MICHAEL. And the peelers never followed after you the eleven days that you're
out?
CHRISTY -- [shaking his head.] -- Never a one of them, and I walking forward
facing hog, dog, or divil on the highway of the road.
PHILLY -- [nodding wisely.] -- It's only with a common week-day kind of a
murderer them lads would be trusting their carcase, and that man should be a
great terror when his temper's roused.
MICHAEL. He should then. (To Christy.) And where was it, mister honey, that
you did the deed?
CHRISTY -- [looking at him with suspicion.] -- Oh, a distant place, master of
the house, a windy corner of high, distant hills.
PHILLY -- [nodding with approval.] -- He's a close man, and he's right,
surely.
PEGEEN. That'd be a lad with the sense of Solomon to have for a pot-boy,
Michael James, if it's the truth you're seeking one at all.
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