"Give me my cigarette, man." The speaker is a boy who looks about eight. He is actually a teenager and is in care at one of the three London homes run by the Lillie Road Centre, organisers of tonight's Millennium Lecture in Dublin by Cardinal Basil Hume.
The hope of the organisers, led by Father Ken McCabe from Birr, Co Offaly, who manages the homes, is to focus attention on the needs of marginalised children and on the complexity of the work done by the declining residentialcare sector.
The way the cigarette incident develops provides a striking example of that complexity.
It is just after lunch. The boy had one cigarette when he came in from school and the next is not due until teatime. That's the rule, but he isn't having any of it.
"I want my cigarette, man, come on, give me my cigarette."
The rule is repeated, patiently, and he is asked to leave the office. He leaves, but every time the door opens he is back with the demand.
"Get my cigarette out of the safe, man, I want my cigarette."
Next he appears at the window of the office, sticking his head in. "If I don't get my cigarette I'm gonna smash this window."
A staff member passing by outside speaks to him. He disappears from view. Suddenly there are two sharp impact sounds as whatever he has thrown hits, but does not smash, the glass.
Silence descends. He has "done a runner". Within less than a minute his mother has been notified by telephone with a request that she send him back if he turns up on her doorstep.
No sooner has the phone been put down than he is back with 10 cigarettes that he has got from somewhere. The cigarettes are confiscated. He is put on the phone to his mother.
From outside the room he can be heard plaintively declaring, "I tried asking them politely, Mum, but they wouldn't give me my cigarette, so what was I supposed to do?"
He leaves the office crying. A few minutes later he is calm. The crisis is over. In a short time the staff member who was the target of his attacks will be helping him with his homework.
Facing these emotional storms from children who have been terribly hurt by adults in the past and then creating an atmosphere of stability is part of the day-to-day work that goes on in residential homes everywhere.
What is extraordinary about the work is that it must be done again and again and again. What is even more extraordinary is that eventually it succeeds in enough cases to make it worthwhile.
Father McCabe talks proudly of the former residents who have gone on to complete degrees and who now occupy demanding and responsible positions. More importantly, many have gone on to build stable families of their own.
Many of the boys and girls in children's homes today, he says, have suffered catastrophic disruptions to their relationships with parents. Many have had experiences which could destroy anybody. Some have have seen terrifying violence in front of their eyes in their own homes.
Some have seen their mothers killed by their fathers. Some have never known a day of security in their entire lives.
Others have grown up in situations of daily chaos or with parents who themselves were unable to cope with life and especially with their children. Some have been bundled from one foster home to another.
Many of these children are years behind in their schooling, find it very hard to accept direction or boundaries, are restless and are quick to translate their emotional pain into violence against property or against others.
But setting boundaries is not enough in itself - you can do that in prison. What works, says Father McCabe, is giving them something worth having in return for respecting the boundaries.
That means good-quality accommodation, a pleasant environment, football, and a pleasant atmosphere in the small school attached to the homes which aims to get the children to the point at which they can cope with going to ordinary schools.