His secretary risked a sideways glance at him. That pink pullover might be all right on the golf course, she thought, but here in the office it made him look like a superannuated nancy boy. He was a stout man with a head of auburn curls, graying now, and a cross-hatching of livid veins over his cheekbones that was the legacy of a lifetime’s hard drinking. He should beware a brain hemorrhage himself, Miss Somers considered. He was the fourth editor she had worked for in the forty years of her employment at the Clarion, not counting Eddie Randall, who broke down after a fortnight in the job and was sacked. She remembered old man Jewell, the well-named Francie; over a hot port in Mooney’s one Christmas he had made an indecent proposal to her that she had pretended not to understand. All the same, he was a real man, not like the fellows going about now, calling themselves journalists-what ever happened to reporters?-and spending half the working week playing golf and the other half in the pub.

Clancy was off again, pacing and prating: “… scion of a great Dublin family and a-” He stopped again, checked as Miss Somers delicately but unignorably cleared her throat. “What is it now?”

“Pardon me, Mr. Clancy-but what was that word?”

“What?” He was baffled.

“Do you mean scion?” Miss Somers asked. “I believe that’s how it’s pronounced, not skion. ”

She would not raise her eyes to his, and he stood in the middle of the floor breathing hard and gazing at the white parting down the center of her silver hair with an expression of angry helplessness. Bloody, impossible, dried-up old maid! “Oh, do forgive my ignorance, please,” he said with weary sarcasm, “ -scion of a great Dublin family…” And a ruthless bastard, he was thinking, who would tear out your heart as quick as look at you. He waved a hand impatiently and went and sat down behind his desk. “We’ll finish it later,” he said, “there’s plenty of time. Ask the switch to get me Hackett over at Pearse Street, will you?”