CALLIFER: I say the Mass every Sunday at eight-thirty and on week-days at seven for those who care to come. There aren’t many of them. What else do you want of me?

MISS CONNOLLY: Oh, you stand at the altar all right, gabbling your way through as quickly as possible to get at your breakfast. But you don’t believe a word you are saying.

CALLIFER: How do you know?

MISS CONNOLLY: In a life like mine you get an ear for such things.

CALLIFER: Yes, I suppose so.

MISS CONNOLLY: You should have heard poor Father Murphy and the beautiful voice he had. He wouldn’t have read other men’s sermons because he had no thoughts of his own.

CALLIFER: I can tell he never preached to you on charity.

MISS CONNOLLY: I found your new hiding place this morning. (Callifer turns his back on her and moves away. More gently): Father, what kind of a priest are you?

CALLIFER: A priest who does his job. I say the Mass, I hear confessions, if anyone has a stomach ache in the night, don’t I go to him? Who has ever asked for me and I haven’t come?

MISS CONNOLLY: Miss Alexander.

CALLIFER (slowly, with shame): Yes, you would remind me of that.

MISS CONNOLLY: I couldn’t wake you. I had to say next day you were sick. Sick!

CALLIFER: Miss Connolly, you’ve looked after a lot of priests. You take it as your right to speak your mind to them. And me—you expect me to serve you, all of you, every day for twenty-four hours. I mustn’t be a man. I must be a priest. And in return, after Mass you give me coffee and eggs (in all these years you’ve never learnt how to make coffee) and you make my bed. You keep my two rooms clean—or nearly. (He runs his finger along the mantelpiece.) I don’t ask you for any more than you are paid to do.

MISS CONNOLLY: The people here have a right to a priest with the faith.

CALLIFER: Faith. They want a play-actor. They want snow-white hair, high collars, clean vestments (who pays the cleaner?—not their sixpence), and they want a voice that’s never husky with the boredom of saying the same words day after day. All right. Let them write to the Bishop. Do you think I want to get up every morning at six in time to make my meditation before Mass? Meditation on what? The reason why I’m going on with this slave-labour? They give prisoners useless tasks, don’t they, digging pits and filling them up again? Like mine.

MISS CONNOLLY: Speak low. You don’t understand what you are saying, Father.