Short Fiction of Flann O'Brien (Irish Literature) by Flann O’Brien Page A

on there like a mug and next thing the box is surrounded by Guards and ambulances and attendants with ropes. No fear, says I to meself, there’s going to be no work on the phone for me! Into another pub. I have to wind up now and no mistake. How long was I knocked out be the drugs? A day? Two days? Was I in bed for a week ? Suddenly I see a sight that gladdens me heart. Away down at the end of the pub there’s an oul’ fellow reading an evening paper with a magnifying glass. I take a mouthful of stout, steady meself, and march down to him. Me mind is made up: if he doesn’t hand over the paper, I’ll kill him. Down I go. Excuse me, says I, snatching the paper away from him and he still keeps looking through the glass with no paper there, I think he was deaf as well as half blind. Then I read the date—I suppose it was the first time the date was the big news on a paper. It says “Thursday, 22nd November, 1945.” I never enjoyed a bit of news so much. I hand back the paper and say thanks very much, sir, for the loan of your paper. Then I go back to finish me stout, very happy and pleased with me own cuteness. Another man, I say to meself, would ask people, make a show of himself and maybe get locked up. But not me. I’m smart. Then begob I nearly choked.
    — What was the cause of that ?
    —To-day is Thursday, I say to meself. Fair enough. But . . . what day did I go to bed ? What’s the use of knowing to-day’s Thursday if I don’t know when I went to bed? I still don’t know whether I’ve been asleep for a day or a week! I nearly fell down on the floor. I am back where I started. Only I am feeling weaker and be now I have the wind up in gales. The heart begins to knock so loud that I’m afraid the man behind the counter will hear it and order me out.
    — What did you do ?
    —Lookat here, me friend, I say to meself, take it easy. Go back now to the flat and take it easy for a while. This’ll all end up all right, everything comes right in the latter end. Worse than this happened many’s a man. And back to the flat I go. I collapse down into a chair with the hat still on me head, I sink the face down in me hands, and try to think. I’m like that for maybe five minutes. Then, suddenly , I know the answer! Without help from papers or clocks or people, I know how long I am there sleeping under the green pills! How did I know? Think that one out! How would you know if you were in the same boat?
    (Before continuing, readers may wish to accept the sufferer’s challenge.)
    — I am thinking .
    —Don’t talk to me about calendars or hunger or anything like that. It’s no use—you won’t guess. You wouldn’t think of it in a million years. Look. My face is in my hands—like this. Suddenly I notice the face is smooth. I’m not badly in need of a shave. That means it must be the same day I went to bed on! Maybe the stomach or something woke me up for a second or so. If I’d stopped in bed, I was off asleep again in a minute. But I got up to find the time and that’s what ruined me! Now do you get it? Because when I went back to bed that night, I didn’t waken till the middle of the next day.
    — You asked me how I would have found out how long I had been there after finding that the day was Thursday. I have no guarantee that a person in your condition would not get up and shave in his sleep. There was a better way .
    —There was no other way.
    — There was. If I were in your place I would have looked at the date on the prescription .

 
    The Martyr’s Crown (1950)
    by Brian Nolan
    Mr. Toole and Mr. O’Hickey walked down the street together in the morning.
    Mr. Toole had a peculiarity. He had the habit, when accompanied by another person, of saluting total strangers; but only if these strangers were of important air and costly raiment. He meant thus to make it known that he had friends in high places, and that he himself, though poor, was a person of quality fallen on evil days through some