Mr Browne

Mr Browne is a genial, sociable guest at the Morkan sisters’ annual dance whose flirtatious jokes and easy hospitality help animate the gathering. His geniality has a performative edge: he plays the ladies’ entertainer, pours himself whisky under cover of a joke about medical advice, and later becomes an expansive advocate for the operatic glories of Dublin’s past.

At the Dance

Mr Browne presents himself as a friend of women, pursing his lips until his moustache bristles and beginning a boast about why the young women are so fond of him. He breaks off when Aunt Kate is out of earshot, then leads three young women into the back room, where tables are being laid and refreshments arranged. His entrance makes him both a participant in the dance and a practical guide through its crowded domestic spaces.

There he offers the young women hot, strong, sweet punch; when they say they never take anything strong, he opens lemonade for them instead. He then asks one of the young men to move aside, pours himself a substantial measure of whisky, and takes a trial sip while the young men watch respectfully. His explanation, delivered with a smile, is that the drink is the doctor’s orders. The joke turns his indulgence into a social performance, and the young women answer it with laughter.

Conversation and Taste

Later, Mr Browne praises Teddy for finding the really good things, contributing familiarly to the table’s conversation. Freddy Malins sharply challenges the implication that Teddy’s race might exclude him from having a voice. Nobody answers. Mary Jane redirects the table to opera, and Mr Browne’s role shifts from convivial entertainer to confident custodian of musical memory.

He recalls the celebrated Italian companies that once came to Dublin, naming singers including Tietjens, Ilma de Murzka, Campanini, Trebelli, Giuglini, Ravelli, and Aramburo. He remembers the old Royal’s packed upper gallery and an Italian tenor who sang five encores of “Let me like a Soldier fall,” adding a high C each time. He also recounts how enthusiastic gallery boys sometimes unyoked the horses from a prima donna’s carriage and pulled it themselves through the streets to her hotel. For Mr Browne, these stories make the past a measure by which the present falls short: he argues that the grand operas are no longer staged because Dublin no longer has voices capable of singing them. Bartell D’Arcy counters that singers today may be just as good, leaving Mr Browne’s nostalgia as one opinion in a conversation shaped by competing memories of musical life.

The Journey Home

At the end of the evening, Mr Browne helps Freddy Malins get his mother down the front steps and into a cab. The task takes several manoeuvres: Freddy climbs in after her and spends a long time settling her on the seat, while Mr Browne offers advice. Once she is comfortable, Freddy invites him into the cab, and the cabman asks where to take them.

The practical question becomes a shared comic muddle. Freddy and Mr Browne each lean out of a window to direct the cabman, while Aunt Kate, Aunt Julia, and Mary Jane add contradictory instructions from the doorstep. Freddy laughs so helplessly that he repeatedly pops his head in and out of the window, risking his hat. Above the general laughter, Mr Browne finally asks whether the cabman knows Trinity College. The scene closes the evening on collective confusion and hospitality: Mr Browne is not merely a guest being sent home, but an active helper who joins the Malins family’s journey and its disorderly good humour.