[A great burst of cheering outside, someway off.]
MAHON -- [putting his hands to his ears.] -- What in the name of God do they
want roaring below?
WIDOW QUIN -- [with the shade of a smile.] -- They're cheering a young lad,
the champion Playboy of the Western World. [More cheering.]
MAHON -- [going to window.] It'd split my heart to hear them, and I with
pulses in my brain-pan for a week gone by. Is it racing they are?
JIMMY -- [looking from door.] -- It is then. They are mounting him for the
mule race will be run upon the sands. That's the playboy on the winkered
mule.
MAHON [puzzled.] That lad, is it? If you said it was a fool he was, I'd
have laid a mighty oath he was the likeness of my wandering son (uneasily,
putting his hand to his head.) Faith, I'm thinking I'll go walking for to
view the race.
WIDOW QUIN -- [stopping him, sharply.] -- You will not. You'd best take the
road to Belmullet, and not be dilly-dallying in this place where there isn't a
spot you could sleep.
PHILLY -- [coming forward.] -- Don't mind her. Mount there on the bench and
you'll have a view of the whole. They're hurrying before the tide will rise,
and it'd be near over if you went down the pathway through the crags below.
MAHON [mounts on bench, Widow Quin beside him.] -- That's a right view again
the edge of the sea. They're coming now from the point. He's leading. Who
is he at all?
WIDOW QUIN. He's the champion of the world, I tell you, and there isn't a
hop'orth isn't falling lucky to his hands to-day.
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