Page:The Playboy of the Western World.djvu/74

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The Playboy of the

PEGEEN.

What call have you to be that lonesome when there's poor girls walking Mayo in their thousands now?

CHRISTY. grimly.

It's well you know what call I have. It's well you know it's a lonesome thing to be passing small towns with the lights shining sideways when the night is down, or going in strange places with a dog noising before you and a dog noising behind, or drawn to the cities where you'd hear a voice kissing and talking deep love in every shadow of the ditch, and you passing on with an empty, hungry stomach failing from your heart.

PEGEEN.

I'm thinking you're an odd man, Christy Mahon, The oddest walking fellow I ever set my eyes on to this hour to-day.

CHRISTY.

What would any be but odd men and they living lonesome in the world?

PEGEEN.

I'm not odd, and I'm my whole life with my father only.

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