"... What I am saying at such length, dear Kevin, is that when a man marries he domesticates a tigress."

"Why a tigress?"

"A carnivore who will smile as she consumes him."

"I've seen women who sweeten everyone they talk to."

"Are you drunk enough to hear the truth?"

"I am sober enough to recognize it."

"The truth about Elizabeth?"

"Tell it if you can."

"You should watch her.  She's got a classical face, clear-cut features that mirror an icy heart.  She has a will that can only be conquered by snaffle and curb, the two things that the modern woman most stridently rejects."

Festus was more than tipsy.  He had reached the stage of drunkenness when he would order two double whiskeys and drink his own while the barman was still pouring Kevin's.  He was in one of his conspirational moods in which he continually looked over his shoulder before speaking and gripped Kevin's forearm as he whispered in his ear.

"What a man needs in a wife is moral and not physical beauty," he continued.  "You need a warm heart more than a pretty nose.  Now, Elizabeth has physical beauty, but has she the sweetness of nature to match it?  I think she's a filly, and there you have my sympathy."

"What do you mean?"

"Womankind can be divided into two classes: fillies and heifers.  Fillies are slender, small-breasted, quick-footed, intelligent, and excitable.  That's your Lizzie.  Heifers are heavy and slow, with udders for breasts and a tendency to sleep.  Most men would prefer to be seen out with a filly in the evening, but they'd prefer to spend the night with a heifer.  Heifers make the truest and trustiest bedfellows.  They eat a lot, think little, and are content with only scant attention."

"If that's your view of women, why do you pursue them?" Kevin asked.

"I pursue them for the same reason a cat will pursue a mouse.  You've often seen cats that will kill mice and never eat them  Well, I'm the same with women.  My pleasure is in the chase, in bringing the quarry to bay, not in the consumption.  Once a woman drops her knickers I lose all interest, though I must admit that now and again curiosity overcomes me, the desire to see if she's musical, if she has a sense of rhythm on the short strokes.  But once I've found out, I look round for the next.  I've had a lot of women in the last five years, not one of them twice."

"Come on now, Festus, tell the truth.  What about the widow from Clonaslew?"

"She's the exception that proves the rule.  I keep going back because she's an eminently penetrable lady, but even she has her faults.  If I didn't keep her on such a tight rein, she'd be telling me within a week that until I met her I didn't know the cure for white scour in calves."

At closing time Festus invited Kevin back for what he called "a last drink single."  He did not want another drink, and neither did he want to disturb Mrs. O'Flaherty, but when Festus said that they would have only one drink and that they would have it in the garage he agreed.  O'Flaherty opened the garage doors, drove in, and closed them again.  Kevin got into the front beside him while he opened a half-bottle of Scotch which he had secreted in the glove compartement.

"We've had our last night out together," he said after a while.

"Nonsense.  I'll still come to Phelan's on Saturday's."

"Brave words, Kevin, but we'll see."

"You're drunk, Festus.  You drink too much, enough to ruin the health of a stronger man."

"I drink no more than I need.  My choice is not between a ripe old age and cirrhosis of the liver at fifty, but between the madhouse at forty and cirrhosis at fifty.  Dear God, give me cirrhosis before madness."

"Why madness?"

"It's a constant battle with the tigress.  I stay with her only because of the children.  Surely, you must know that only a very unhappy man would waste his life on women, monsters in fancy dress.  There's nothing I'd like better than to spend an evening with a book at my own fireside, but I can't.  One day you may see what I mean, but for your own sake I hope you never do."