Shaun stepped out off the door of the tobacconist, into the pouring rain, his tweed coat pulled up around him. The streets of Dublin were drenched with the downpour. He hurried along, as the gaslights flickered weirdly in the rain. It was a horrible night, to be sure. There was only a few blocks to go to get to his boarding house, but he feared he would be soaked to the skin before he reached it. His sloped hat rain the rain off the bill like a miniature waterfall.

As he hurried along, a few more figures scurried past, some with their rain slickers on, if they were lucky. After seven minutes of being assaulted, he arrived at the boarding house. He went around to the kitchen entrance, knowing Mrs. O'Brien would have a cow if he got her entry way wet. It was bad enough entering the kitchen. The rain stopped falling on him, as he ducked into the gaslight interior. Molly scolded at him, as he slipped his coat off and shook with the cold of the evening.

She was a comfortably curved woman in her middling years, with gray streaks in her blonde hair and red cheeks. She threw a towel around his shoulders and sat him down in front of the fire. He knew he must look quite the sight, with his salt and pepper hair plastered against his head. His long sleeved brown shirt was dry, as were his galluses, but his trousers were wet through.

He was a tall, wiry man with a slender face with high cheek bones. His fingers were long and expressive, like those of a pianist and he warmed them at the fire as he sat under the towel, cold and miserable. He could hear Molly puttering around the kitchen behind him, and though again what a pleasant and agreeable woman she was.