A room in Captain Boyle's house. On the left a wide window with the bars of a balcony outside it. Beneath it an old-fashioned chimneypiece, over the mantelshelf a mirror and a number of photographs in dingy gilt frames. On the right of the room a door into the passage and beyond it a door leading to other rooms. The furniture is shabby, but respectable. A cracked, brass-bound gramophone stands on a chair up-stage near the window; a battered piano stands down-stage to the right. A tall clock ticks in the corner. Through the window can be seen the bright sky and the roofs of the houses across the street. Outside a woman passes with a baby in her arms singing a lullaby. The time: a late afternoon in late spring.
Juno Boyle is discovered standing in the middle of the room with a kettle in one hand and a tin from which she is taking tea-leaves in the other. She is a stout, motherly woman of about forty-five, with a round, kindly, tired face. Her dress is neat but worn. She hums a tune as she works. She turns the kettle lid once or twice and looks at the clock in the corner.
The door on the right opens and Captain Boyle comes in, dragging his chair behind him. He is a tall, stout man of about forty-five, with a florid, dishevelled face and a showy black coat. He strikes an attitude as he enters and looks about the room with an air of injured dignity. On seeing Juno he flings himself into the chair, throws up his hands and groans dramatically.
'Och, Juno!' he cries. 'Och, beloved! My head! Me heart! Me — everything! If it isn't me some mortal sorrow it's me another. By the powers, Juno, the world is a tumble-down house and I'm the last furniture left in it!'
Juno lays aside the kettle and the tea, smooths her apron and goes over to the Captain with a look of affectionate reproof. 'Sit down, Jack,' she says. 'Sit down straight. Don't be forever moaning and groaning like a drum at a wake. Your heart's not so bad as you make out, and sure, if it was, what could I do? I'd be the same loving you all the time.'
The Captain lifts his hand as though wounded. 'An' do you call that love, Juno — sech love as saves me from the pavin' stones an' from the gallows?' he says, his voice sinking into a sentimental whine. 'Faith, I'm a ruined man! I'm as poor as Lazarus with a hole in his pocket! Gin and the police the only friends I have now! An' yet I was once a gentleman, Juno — once I had a name for bein' a man of consequence. Now I'm Captain Boyle an' I can't pay me rates.'
Juno frowns and stands up straight. 'Pay your rates, do you hear me? How many times have I told you, Jack, to pay the rates? Ye'll never get peace till ye pay the rates. Them men will have the lamp-post out of our street next if ye don't. And what's the use of talkin' about bein' a gentleman when ye never had a sixpence to call your own these ten years?'
The Captain bursts into a flood of theatrical tears and clasps his breast. 'Och, Juno! Me little Juno! Don't! don't!' he cries. 'But I must have some dignity left. I must show the world I'm a man that had his day. There's few that knows Jack Boyle when he's down. It's a disgrace I'm living under. An' to think, too, I'm the father of Mary, the flower of my heart!'
At the name Mary the Captain's voice brightens with a touch of pride. Juno smiles sadly. 'Oh, Mary!' she says. 'The child has a good heart. But where will she be after all? That house of hers — sure Mr. Willoughby'll have the law of us this week if Jack doesn't look alive an' do sumthin'.'
A few beats of silence. From outside the sound of some boys singing a street-ballad faintly. The Captain lounges back in his chair and strikes a pose as though composing himself for a speech. 'What we want,' he declares pompously, 'is a little cash, Juno — a bit of ready money. Money is the key to the world. With money you can buy a horse, an' with a horse you can ride to elections, an' with elections you can come into power — an' with power you can make yourself a lord.'
Juno looks at him with mingled amusement and pity. 'Lord or no lord,' she says, 'mind you get the money for the rates, that's all. An' if ye'd keep out of the public-house once in a while an' stop blarneyin' them that has more sense than you have, we'd be better off.'
The Captain's face falls; he glances uneasily at the clock. 'Hasn't the Day left us a message yet?' he asks. 'An' what about the notice of distraint, Juno? Did ye hear the knock at the door this morning when I was sleepin' off me watch?'
Juno nods gravely. 'Aye. I heard. Mr. O'Casey says they'll be here to take the furniture in two days if the rent ain't paid. There's no use denyin' it, Jack. We'll have to find the money somehow.'