Nobody who knows you could. You wouldn't care a pin if everybody in
the world was late for every engagement they made for a whole year.
What you do care about is your own miserable stomach. If it isn't
filled at just exactly the usual moment you get savage, although you
are usually a fairly good-tempered man. That demonstrates the truth of
what I say. And if it's truth about you after all the years you've
lived in this country, it is, of course, much more true about this
judge. Therefore, to get back to what I was saying a minute
ago--having failed in my appeal to his intellect--I fall back upon the
one vulnerable part of him and try if I can influence him through that."
"Do tell me what you've done, J. J."
"I've told Sabina Gallagher--"
"Who is Sabina Gallagher?"
"She's Doyle's cook. She is, in the opinion of the judge, quite the
most important person in the whole of Ballymoy."
"I don't expect he really thinks that," said the Major, "after seeing
you. But what did you tell Sabina?"
"I told her that everything he got to eat was to taste of paraffin oil.
That, I think, ought to drive him out of Ballymoy in twenty-four hours.
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