Spring Meeting

Your brandy, sir.

A lovely morning, sir.

A sight for sore eyes.

That'll be the Wicklow Hills coming up sir.

They coming up too?

There'll be anything more sir?

Yes, another brandy,

and one for my mother if she's still alive.

So this is Ireland?

Wait till you get there, it'll be worth it.

Nothing could be worth what I've been through.

Try not to think about it.

All you've got to do is concentrate.

Think of that lovely girl, that open-headed Irish heart,

those big, long, excuse me.

Did you find Miss Baby?

I did, at last, she was out ferrotting flat on her stomach

with her nose in the burrow, she's coming now.

Oh.

God it be! I must remember to make

Johnny remember to fix that thing.

There you are.

Oh there you are!

Joannie?

Yes, Cousin Maude's dress from Dublin.

So I can go to the dance after all.

Well, if you can get clean by tomorrow night.

Well, there'd be no need to get me

clean if you can't make the dress fit.

I shan't bother unless you do it.

Let's try it on.

All right.

Joan, look it's a swine!

It would fit me and the Dublin Fusiliors!

Well, considering Cousin Maude weighs 14 stone,

and eats all around her then it's too bad for her.

Let's see what we can do.

I'll never get a man like this!

If a girl has such bosoms like this.

Oh, wait now. I think we're going to be lucky.

It's just your height by the time I put a few gathers here,

and a lift on the shoulder.

Ugh, the colour would frighten a banshee.

Well, the colour we'll change at night, don't be silly.

Oh if only it didn't smell so of cousin Maude.

Hm, an expensive smell.

It makes me sick.

Me too.

Honestly, you know Baby I don't

think it is going to be too bad.

When I'm finished with it you won't know it!

Won't I? You'd be surprised.

Well, look.

There. What you think of it now?

At least it isn't so bad,

I really look as if I have some nice bosoms.

All the same, I wish Father let us have some new clothes.

I wouldn't mind how cheap they were

as long as they were new and didn't smell of Cousin Maude.

Oh there you are you spalpin!

That's fast asleep.

I was not. I was trying to remember what I disremember.

Yes, and what's that?

How can I tell you when I don't remember?

Miss Baby's glamour books, now why were you away so long?

My bicycle punctured and then I missed the bus,

and then I had to call the post office

and what with a stone in my shoe.

Yes, anything else?

Yes, there was something else.

What was it?

Sure, that's what I disremember.

Well you better call it to mind,

or the sir will flay you alive,

and it will be off with you to the

yard and chop some of that wood.

Do you want all of us to catch

our death of colds in the kitchen?

Glamour.

Ah look, there's glamour indeed.

Well, heavens child, isn't it very bare?

James?

What?

Put another log on the fire.

Yes miss.

If Sir Richard sees a bigger fire than that he'd eat me.

Yes, but he won't be back till tea time.

If that's true then you must be perished in that dress,

if you can call it a dress at all.

My glamour books I thought

James had forgotten about it.

I forgot to remind Johnny to remember to fix that.

Miss Joan, you mind the chill you got

when you went stripped to your first ball?

It was 12 years ago.

And you don't look a day older.

Oh, thank you James.

There's Miss Bijou's milk getting cold.

She'll grumble if there's a skin on it.

I meself would have preferred you in blue.

Blue.

A girl is always safe in blue.

Too safe.

Oh Joannie I do wish we had two boys to go with tomorrow.

We've shared poor Michael so often.

Michael is very fond of you.

Darling Michael, he's grand, he's tall, he's dark, he's-

but he's yours, not mine.

Oh, but Michael's very fond of you too.

Yes darling, but it's a little different.

Yes, I think I'd better go and hit the gong.

Bijou must be getting deaf.

Joannie, why don't you get him to tell Father?

I have tried, but you know what Michael is.

Sound the horn Michael, me boy,

Mrs. Foloy is sure to be asleep.

It's a right puzzle to know who

to put in a lodge gate nowadays.

They're either raising families or breeding pigs.

Ah you better go and open the gate yourself,

there's a good boy.

All right.

I think you might have sounded

the gong for me, my darlings.

We did Aunt Bijou, you must have been asleep.

Nonsense. You know I never sleep.

Mercy on us! Where's my milk?

It's over there.

What a nasty skin.

And no biscuit, not that I could eat that.

I don't think that is at all a becoming dress.

I don't like this dress at all, my darling.

It's a hideous dress, my darling.

Now how about a nice blue dress?

A girl is always safe in blue.

Where are you going in that nasty dress?

To a dance.

Oh, why would you want to do that?

My darling, you'll only catch a cold.

Yes, it's about all I will catch in this pretty gown.

Oh Baby, I'm doing my best.

I don't why everybody wants to go to a dance,

they'd be much better off in bed.

I'll never get myself a husband staying in bed.

Well, who wants a husband?

No lady ever thinks of such a nasty thing, till it happens.

I think of it often.

I want one and I'll have one.

My darling, the ladies of our family don't marry.

I didn't marry.

And Aunt Agnes and Aunt Kathleen

never thought of such a thing.

And there's our dear little Joan.

Joannie might give you a dirty surprise yet.

The Sir is blasting his horn for Mrs. Foloy,

he be coming up the drive.

I must be taking that log off quick before he sees it.

Miss Baby, you can't be seen here like that,

now go up to your room, quick!

What am I going to do about this blasted dress?

Wait until I come up.

Would you fasten yourself up please before he comes?

She looks like a nursing kangaroo.

Such a nasty pain in my little inside, my darling.

You'll never get to unpin me.

I'll come up there as soon as I can,

and while you're waiting you can tidy yourself up.

James, you won't forget to put my money on.

I'm going to send the kitchen maid in on her

bicycle when the family is at dinner.

Are we wise, I wonder, to back Mercury?

He'll be a very short price.

With that weight they must fancy him.

Look here what Robin Goodfellow says.

You've been cutting the papers again,

I'm very careful, James.

I do it in the bathroom with the door locked.

I don't know what's going to happen when the Sir

finds out you've been betting again.

Like we did when we had the housekeeping money,

those were the days.

Did we put Mercury in the double?

We did. Him and Beau Gesto.

Ah yes, Beau Gesto.

Hey!

Now what does Captain

Cuttle say about him? - He's coming up the drive

now put them away.

Don't go dropping them about like confetti now.

Thanks for the lift Michael.

Oh yes good Sir.

Oh, you better come in and have a cup of tea.

Oh, thank you Sir.

Oh, and while you're here you

might take a look at that Solario colt.

I don't like the look of that fotloek.

Now why isn't the tea ready?

It's a right puzzle to know what

the servants do with their time nowadays.

That bell doesn't ring, my darling.