There is nothing picturesquely careless about this get-up. It is commonplace shabby. He believes in wearing his clothes to the limit of usefulness, is dressed now for gardening, and doesn’t give a damn how he looks.

He has never been really sick a day in his life. He has no nerves. There is a lot of stolid, earthy peasant in him, mixed with streaks of sentimental melancholy and rare flashes of intuitive sensibility.

Tyrone’s arm is around his wife’s waist as they appear from the back parlor. Entering the living room he gives her a playful hug.

TYRONE

You’re a fine armful now, Mary, with those twenty pounds you’ve gained.

MARY

Smiles affectionately.
I’ve gotten too fat, you mean, dear. I really ought to reduce.

TYRONE

None of that, my lady! You’re just right. We’ll have no talk of reducing. Is that why you ate so little breakfast?

MARY

So little? I thought I ate a lot.

TYRONE

You didn’t. Not as much as I’d like to see, anyway.

MARY

Teasingly.
Oh you! You expect everyone to eat the enormous breakfast you do. No one else in the world could without dying of indigestion.
She comes forward to stand by the right of table.

TYRONE

Following her.
I hope I’m not as big a glutton as that sounds.
With hearty satisfaction.
But thank God, I’ve kept my appetite and I’ve the digestion of a young man of twenty, if I am sixty-five.

MARY

You surely have, James. No one could deny that.

She laughs and sits in the wicker armchair at right rear of table. He comes around in back of her and selects a cigar from a box on the table and cuts off the end with a little clipper. From the dining room Jamie’s and Edmund’s voices are heard. Mary turns her head that way.

Why did the boys stay in the dining room, I wonder? Cathleen must be waiting to clear the table.

TYRONE

Jokingly but with an undercurrent of resentment.

It’s a secret confab they don’t want me to hear, I suppose. I’ll bet they’re cooking up some new scheme to touch the Old Man.
She is silent on this, keeping her head turned toward their voices. Her hands appear on the table top, moving restlessly. He lights his cigar and sits down in the rocker at right of table, which is his chair, and puffs contentedly.

There’s nothing like the first after-breakfast cigar, if it’s a good one, and this new lot have the right mellow flavor. They’re a great bargain, too. I got them dead cheap. It was McGuire put me on to them.

MARY

A trifle acidly.

I hope he didn’t put you on to any new piece of property at the same time. His real estate bargains don’t work out so well.

TYRONE

Defensively.

I wouldn’t say that, Mary. After all, he was the one who advised me to buy that place on Chestnut Street and I made a quick turnover on it for a fine profit.

MARY

Smiles now with teasing affection.

I know. The famous one stroke of good luck. I’m sure McGuire never dreamed—

Then she pats his hand.

Never mind, James. I know it’s a waste of breath trying to convince you you’re not a cunning real estate speculator.

TYRONE

Huffily.

I’ve no such idea. But land is land, and it’s safer than the stocks and bonds of Wall Street swindlers.

Then placatingly.

But let’s not argue about business this early in the morning.

A pause. The boys’ voices are again heard and one of them has a fit of coughing.