The Project Gutenberg EBook of Irish Yarns Wit and Humor No 2, by Anonymous This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license Title: Irish Yarns Wit and Humor No 2 Author: Anonymous Release Date: September 1, 2019 [EBook #60216] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IRISH YARNS WIT AND HUMOR NO 2 *** Produced by David Edwards and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
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ON JUDGMENT DAY.
A certain priest and a parishioner were visiting one night and judgment day was mentioned.
“What d’ye mean, ‘judgment’ day?” the man inquired.
“Judgment day,” replied the priest, “is the day when all who have died are brought up for judgment, when their sins are judged and the verdict—judgment—is pronounced.”
“Aha,” exclaimed the man. “And will the A. P. A.’s be there?”
“Yes, the A. P. A.’s will be there.”
“Will the Ancient Order of Hibernians be there?”
“They certainly will! Why?”
“Well, I’m thinking there’ll be mighty little ‘judging’ done the first few hours, thin!”
Pat—“That McGinty is a fine fellow.”
Mick—“Is he?”
Pat—“He is, indeed. Great friend of mine. Did you notice how heartily he shook hands with me?”
Mick—“I did.”
Pat—“Great friend of mine. He wasn’t satisfied with shaking one hand, but he grabbed hold of both.”
Mick—“I suppose he thought his watch and chain would be safer that way.”
EASY FOR PADDY.
At a political meeting an Irishman watched closely the trombone player in the band. Presently the man laid down his instrument and went out for a beer. Paddy investigated, and promptly pulled the horn to pieces. The player returned. “Who’s meddled mit my drombone?” he roared. “Oi did,” said Paddy. “Here ye’ve been for two hours tryin’ to pull it apart, an’ Oi did it in wan minute!”
Mike—“What a red nose that Sweeney has.”
“Whist, man; he spint a barrel of money to get it to the pink of perfection.”
It was in the wilds of Tipperary, and the local and long-suffering landlord had been ill-advised enough to ask for a bit of rent on account—the same being some few years overdue. Roused to fury at this unlooked-for and, in their eyes, outrageous demand, Mike and Pat decided to “wait for” the base and greedy tyrant. And they did—behind a hedge with a shot-gun. An hour passed. Their feet and their fingers were numbed with the cold, and, worse than that, the dhrop or half-bottle of the crathur was gone.
Said Pat to Mike, in a hoarse whisper: “Shure, an’ I hope nothing can have happened to the onfortunate gintleman!”
Not long ago a young Irishman was seeking work in western Illinois, and among those to whom he applied was a farmer near Cairo.
The farmer was attracted by the Celt’s frank, cheery manner, and, while he was not in need of help, he asked, after a pause:
“Can you cradle?”
“Cradle!” repeated the Irishman. “Sure, I can! But, sir,” he added persuasively, “couldn’t ye give me a job out of dures?”
Mrs. Murphy—“Oi hear yer brother-in-law, Pat Keegan, is pretty bad off.”
Mrs. Casey—“Shure, he’s good for a year yit.”
Mrs. Murphy—“As long as that?”
Mrs. Casey—“Yes; he’s had four different doctors, and each one uv thim gave him three months to live.”
A Dundee shopkeeper asked an Irishman who was standing at a street corner if he wanted a job.
“Yes, sor,” replied the Irishman.
“Well, now, what would you take to clear the snow away from my premises?”
“A shovel, sor!” was the sharp reply of the Irishman.
He got the job.
A SAVING, ANYWAY.
O’Brien—“So the landlord lowered the rint for yez. He’ll save money at that.”
Casey—“How so?”
O’Brien—“Shure, it’s less he’ll be losin’ when ye don’t pay it.”
MAKING GOOD USE OF HIM.
An Italian organ-grinder possessed a monkey which he “worked” through the summer months. When the cool days came his business fell off, and he discontinued his walks and melodies. An Irishman of his acquaintance offered him half a dollar a week for the privilege of keeping and feeding the little beast. The bargain was made for a month.
Great curiosity filled the mind of the Italian, and at last he went ostensibly to see his pet, but really to find out what possible use Pat could make of the monkey.
The Irishman was frank. “It’s loike this,” he said. “Oi put up a pole in the back yard, with the monkey on the top. Ten or twelve trains of cars loaded with coal go by here every evenin’. There’s men on every car. Every man takes a heave at the monk. Divil a wan has hit him, but Oi have sivin tons of coal.”
PRETTY LOUD.
An Irishman came to a doctor complaining that he had noises in his head.
“Oi have them all the time,” he said, “an’ sometimes Oi can hear thim fifty feet away.”
“Phwat koind av a room would yez loike to hov, sor? Oi can giv’ yez a back room in the front av th’ house, or a front room in th’ back av th’ house jist to suit yer inconvaynience; or Oi can giv’ yez number sixty-six or ninety-nine, jist to suit yer inconvaynience—No. 66 is th’ broidle chamber, but we kape th’ broidle out in th’ shtable.
“Oi can giv’ yez another lovely room in th’ middle av the front av th’ hotel, sor—it’s a lovely place; there do be carpet on th’ floor; air cushion sofys an’ bir-rds-eye maple chif’niers an’ runnin’ hot an’ cold wather passin’ th’ door, whoile th’ bath-tubs are always supplied wid gold fish; th’ room is loighted wid indecent lamps thot are supplied wid electricity, bur-rnin’ noight an’ day in th’ shtreet, an’ a tooth-brush in ivery room.”
“Say, Mr. Clerk, there’s a lady without!”
“Widout phwat; widout phwat?”
“Without here, in the hall, sir.”
“That’s all right; show her up in th’ parlor; Oi’ll be up in a minute.”
“Say, Mr. Clerk, there’s a man upstairs in room 78, says there’s bedbugs in his bed!”
“Phwat! Bedbugs in his bed? Go up and ask him if he wants humming bir-ds in his bed fer a dollar a day?”
“Say, Mr. Clerk, there’s a man upstairs in room 97 who says the rain came through the skylight last night and wet him to the skin.”
“Wet him to th’ skin; charge him 25 cents extra fer th’ bath. G’wan out av here!”
Caller—“Your master’s not at home, eh, Pat?”
Pat—“No, sor; he do be in the ould country these t’ree wakes, sor.”
Caller—“Excuse me, Pat, but how is it when your mistress is on this side of the water master’s on the other, and vice versa? Is there trouble between them?”
Pat—“None at all, sor; only they have agrade bechune ’em that they can live together better when they’re apart.”
The Prisoner—“There goes my hat. Shall I run after it?”
Officer Casey—“Phwat? Run away and never come back again? Not on your life. You stand here and I’ll run after your hat.”
PRECAUTION.
Mrs. Casey—“Me sister writes me that every bottle in the box we sent her was broken. Are you sure yez printed ‘This side up with care’ on it?”
Casey—“Oi am. An’ for fear they shouldn’t see it on the top Oi printed it on the bottom as well.”
DANGER!
An Irishman visiting a friend in the hospital began to take an interest in the other patients.
“What are you in here for?” he asked one.
“I’ve got tonsillitis, and I’ve got to have my tonsils cut out,” was the answer.
“And you?” he asked another.
“I’ve got blood poisoning in my arm, and they are going to cut it off,” was the reply.
“Heavens!” said Pat, in horror, “This ain’t no place for me. I’ve got a cold in my head.”
“Mike, did you ever catch frogs?” “Yes, sor.” “What did you bait with?” “Bate ’em with a shtick, sor.”
People that take all things literally are apt to tread on other people’s toes. The Irishman who walked in where he saw a sign, “Walk in,” and who was ordered out by the lawyer was a literal man, and so was the man that went into a pawnbroker’s shop and demanded ten dollars because there was a placard in the window that read,“Look at this watch for ten dollars.”
“I looked at it,” said he, “and now I want my ten dollars.”
The most amusing incident we have heard is that of the countryman who, while sauntering along a city street, saw a sign, “Please ring the bell for the janitor.”
After reflecting a few minutes he walked up and gave the bell such a pull that it nearly came out by the roots.
In a few minutes an angry-faced man opened the door.
“Are you the janitor?” asked the bell-puller.
“Yes; what do you want?”
“I saw that notice, so I rang the bell for you, and now I want to know why you can’t ring the bell yourself?”
An Irishman wanted to sell a dog, but the prospective buyer was suspicious, and finally decided not to buy. The man then told him why he was anxious to sell. “You see,” said he, “I bought the dog and thrained him myself. I got him so he’d bark all the time if a person stepped inside the gate, and I thought I was safe from burglars. Then me woife wanted me to thrain him to carry bundles—and I did. If you put anything into his mouth, the spalpeen’d keep it there till some one took it away. Well one night I woke up and heard some one in the next room. I got up and grabbed me gun. They were there, three of the blackguards and the dog.”
“Didn’t he bark,” interrupted the other.
“Sorra a bark,” was the reply, “he was too busy.”
“Busy,” asked the other, “what doing?”
“Carrying the lantern for the burglars,” answered the Irishman.
NO NEED TO TELL.
Casey (rolling up his sleeves)—“Did you tell Reilly Oi was a liar?”
Murphy—“Oi did not. Oi thought he knew it!”
Paddy Dolan bought a watch from the local jeweller with a guaranty to keep it in order for twelve months. About six months after, Paddy took it back because it had stopped.
“You seem to have had an accident with it,” said the jeweller.
“A small one, sure enough, sir. About two months ago I was feeding the pig and it fell into the trough.”
“But you should have brought it before.”
“Sure, your honor, I brought it as soon as I could. We only killed the pig yesterday.”
Kathleen had been put out to service, and her mistress liked the rosy face of the young girl. One day Kathleen was sent on an errand to town. She was longer than usual and her mistress stood on the porch as she came through the field. Kathleen was happy and her mistress observed:
“Why, Kathleen, what a rosy face you have to-day! You look as if the dew had kissed you.”
Kathleen dropped her eyes and murmured:
“Indeed, ma’am, but that wasn’t his name!”
An Irishman, who couldn’t read, went into a restaurant and sat down opposite a man who had a bill of fare in his hands, and concluded to order whatever the other man ordered in order not to betray his disordered learning.
Stranger—“I will have a plate of soup.”
Pat—“Give me th’ same.”
Stranger—“And some oysters.”
Pat—“Give me th’ same.”
The stranger ordered what he wanted, and Pat duplicated the order. Finally, the stranger told the waiter to order him a bootblack.
“Give me the same,” said Pat.
“Won’t one do for both of you?”
Pat answered—“No, one won’t; if he can’t eat one, I can!”
“Why did you leave your last place?” the housekeeper asked of the new would-be cook.
“To tell the truth, mum, I just couldn’t stand the way the master an’ the missus used to quarrel, mum.”
“Dear me! Do you mean to say that they actually used to quarrel?”
“Yis, mum, all the time. When it wasn’t me an’ him, it was me and her.”
A gentleman was put out of patience by some blunder of Paddy, his new groom.
“Look here!” he cried in his anger; “I won’t have things done in this way. Do you think I’m a fool?”
“I can’t say, sir,” answered Paddy; “I only came here yesterday.”
ONE OF THE SIGHTS.
A man was visiting Ireland for the first time. In Dublin one warm afternoon he put his handkerchief over his nose and said, in a choked voice, “What the deuce is that?”
“That?” said his Irish guide. “Why, that’s the river Liffey. Didn’t ye know, man, that the smell o’ the Liffey was one o’ the sights o’ Dublin?”
A little Irishman was being examined for admission to the army. He seemed all right in every way except one. The doctor said: “You’re a little stiff.”
Quickly his Irish blood mounted and he replied: “You’re a big stiff.”
NOT HIS NAME.
In Dublin a zealous policeman caught a cab driver in the act of driving recklessly. The officer stopped him and said:
“What’s yer name?”
“You’d better try to find out,” said the driver peevishly.
“Sure, and I will,” said the policeman as he went around to the side of the cab where the name ought to have been painted, but the letters had been rubbed off.
“Aha!” cried the officer. “Now ye’ll git yerself into worse disgrace than ever. Yer name seems to be oblitherated.”
“You’re wrong!” shouted the driver triumphantly. “’Tis O’Sullivan.”
NATURAL HISTORY.
They were looking at the kangaroo at the zoo when an Irishman said:
“Beg pardon, sor, phwat kind of a crature is that?”
“Oh,” said the gentleman, “that is a native of Australia.”
“Good hivins!” exclaimed Pat; “an’ me sister married wan e’ thim.”
A wizened little Irishman applied for a job loading a ship. At first they said he was too small, but he finally persuaded them to give him a trial. He seemed to be making good, until they gradually increased the size of his load until on the last trip he was carrying a 300-pound anvil under each arm. When he was half-way across the gangplank it broke and the Irishman fell in. With a great splashing and sputtering he came to the surface.
“T’row me a rope!” he shouted, and again sank. A second time he rose to the surface. “T’row me a rope. I say!” he shouted again. Once more he sank. A third time he rose struggling.
“Say!” he spluttered angrily, “if one uv you shpalpeens don’t hurry up an’ t’row me a rope I’m goin’ to drop one uv these damn t’ings!”
THE LAST OF THE CARRS.
Mrs. Nora Mulvaney met her old friend, Mrs. Bridget Carr, carrying in her arms her twelfth child.
“Arrah, now, Bridget,” said Nora, “an’ there ye are wid another little Carr in yer arms.”
“Another it is, Mrs. Mulvaney,” replied her friend, “an’ I’m hopin’ ’tis the caboose.”
Mike sat busily engaged in copying the names of the male population of the immediate vicinity. His good wife, noting the apparent industry of her lord, asked what he was doing.
“Begorra, an’ it’s wroitin’ the names o’ the min phwat Oi kin lick, so Oi am!” he exclaimed.
A few minutes later the woman put on her shawl and went to Pat O’Leary’s humble home, where she informed Pat that she saw his name on the list.
Without waiting to don his coat, O’Leary sallied forth in search of Mike, who was found still engaged at the list.
“Moike,” said Pat, in a tone that sounded like the thunders of heaven, “they say as how yez air makin’ a lisht o’ the felleys yez kin lick an’ thot me name’s on it.”
“An’ so ’tis,” retorted Mike.
“But, rist yer sowl,” exclaimed Pat, shaking his fist close to Mike’s proboscis, “yez can’t do it!”
“Thin I’ll scratch yer name off,” said Mike, feebly, and he continued adding to the list.
An old widdy woman went to the undertaker’s to order a coffin for her deceased husband.
“He was very, very good to me,” she said,“and I’ll have a coffin of the best yellow pine.”
“Yes, madam. That’ll be $14,” said the undertaker. “And what kind of trimmings will you have on the coffin?’ ’
“Trimmin’s!” cried the widdy woman. “And right well ye know, ye spalpeen, that I’ll have no trimmin’s at all, when it was the trimmin’s that the poor lad died of, bad luck to ’em!”
Mistress—“You don’t seem to know anything about finger-bowls, Norah. Did they not have them at the last place where you worked?”
Maid—“No, ma’am. They usually washed themselves before they came to the table.”
MISUNDERSTOOD.
Silas B. Quick (marooned in small Irish hotel)—“Say! What mails d’yew get here!”
Pat—“Breakfast, dinner and tay, yer honor.”
Casey’s wife is anxious to be a society woman and the Ancient Order of the Knights of the Golden Hod were going to give their annual riot—I mean ball—and as Casey is the chief hod—I mean knight—of course he had to be there and his wife wanted to shine—of course Casey’s a shine but—said she to Casey: “I’m going to have a new dress for the ball. I’m going to have the bias cut and flounced with crepe de chene and with Charlotte rucheing around the neck—and—”
“What are you going to have it made out of?” said Mr. Casey.
“So that it’ll be light I’ll have it made out of cheese-cloth,” answered Mrs. Casey.
“Cheese-cloth?” said Casey.
“Yis,” said Mrs. Casey—“cheese-cloth.”
“Begorry! If you’re going to have it made out of limburger-cheese cloth you’ll go alone,” said Mr. Casey.
Mrs. Grogan—“Wake oop, ye foghorn. Oi can’t shlape a wink on account av your shnorin’.”
Mr. Grogan—“Ye must thry an’ get used to it, the same as I hov. Oi niver notice it meself at all, at all.”
DIDN’T SOUND GOOD.
Softly the nurse smoothed the sufferer’s pillow. He had been admitted only that morning, and now he looked up pleadingly at the nurse that stood at his bedside.
“An’ phwat did ye say the docther’s name was, nurse, dear,” he asked.
“Dr. Kilpatrick,” was the reply. “He’s the senior house surgeon.”
“That settles it,” he muttered, firmly, “that docther won’t get a chanst to operate on me.”
“Why not?” asked the nurse in surprise. “He’s a very clever man.”
“Tha he may be,” the patient said. “But me name happens to be Patrick.”
Patrick worked for a notoriously stingy boss and lost no chance to let the fact be known. Once a waggish friend, wishing to twit him, remarked:
“Pat, I heard that your boss just gave you a brand-new suit of clothes.”
“No,” said Pat, “only par-rt of a suit.”
“What part?”
“The sleeves iv the vest!”
O’Brien died, and at the wake his friends got filled up with good whiskey. They finally took O’Brien’s body down to Kelly’s saloon and sat it in a chair at a table and drank his health. After several rounds they left the place, forgetting O’Brien’s body, which they left sitting at the table where they had placed it. Kelly wanted to close up, so he walked over to O’Brien and shook him, trying to wake him up. Failing in his efforts to arouse him, he became angry, and securing a club from behind the bar, smashed O’Brien over the head with it. O’Brien fell to the floor, and just at that moment his friends came back to get the corpse, having remembered him. They pretended to be horrified, and charged Kelly with having killed O’Brien with a club. “You’ve murdered him in cold blood,” said one of the gang. “You’re a liar,” said Kelly, “he pulled a razor on me first.”
OLD FRIENDS.
“I tell you,” said Pat, “the ould friends are the best, after all, and I can prove it.”
“How?”
“Where can you find a new friend that has stood by you as long as the ould ones have?”
An Irishman went to England in search of work, and when shown his room in the boarding-house the landlady remarked:
“There’s your bed, Pat, and there are two more to sleep with you, but they won’t be in till late, so don’t be alarmed.”
“They’re welcome,” replied Pat. Before retiring Pat locked his bedroom door and during the night he was awakened by great knocking.
“Whose there?” asked Pat.
“We are the lodgers. Open.”
“No room for ye,” replied Pat.
“How many of you are in the room?” they asked.
“Enough,” said Pat. “There’s meself, Paddy Murphy, a man that came over from Ireland, a man looking for work, a man with a wife and six children, an’ a Tipperary man, too.” By this time they had fled.
“Well,” said the doctor to Pat, “did that cure for deafness really help your brother?”
“Arrah, sure enough,” said Pat. “He hadn’t heard a sound for years, and the day after he took that medicine he heard from a friend in America.”
She was a sweet little thing with the most waspy of wasplike waists, and passers-by had nothing but admiration in their eyes for her.
But what was that? She had fainted. Tenderly they carried her into a drug store. An Irishman who had observed the occurrence, looked in after a few minutes, and inquired:
“How is she now?”
“Oh,” was the reply, “she’s coming to.”
“Ah,” murmured the son of Erin, “come in two—has she? Poor thing! Bedad, it’s just what I was afraid of.”
IN A HURRY.
A traveler finding that he had a couple of hours in Dublin, called a cab and told the driver to drive him around for two hours. At first all went well, but soon the driver began to whip up his horse so that they narrowly escaped several collisions.
“What’s the matter?” demanded the passenger. “Why are you driving so recklessly? I’m in no hurry.”
“Ah, g’wan wid yez,” retorted the cabby. “D’ye think thot I’m goin’ to put in me whole day drivin’ ye around for two hours? Gitap!”
As Paddy was jogging along one day with his ass and cart to market he was accosted by a man having a marked Lancashire accent, who, thinking it would be fun to have a joke at Paddy’s expense, said:
“How much would you charge for driving me all the way to Caherciveen?”
“Begorra, sir,” said Paddy, “I would be only too glad to drive you there, and a long, long piece farther, for nothing, but I am afraid I can’t oblige you this time, ’cos I don’t think the harness would fit you.”
An Englishman traveling in Kilkenny, came to a ford and hired a boat to take him across. The water being more agitated than agreeable to him, he asked the boatman if any person was ever lost in the passage?
“Niver,” replied Pat; “me brother was drowned here last week, but we found him the next day.”
“’Ow did yer git that black eye, Pat?”
“Oi slipped an’ fell on me back.”
“But yer face ain’t on yer back.”
“No—naythur was Flannigan.”
Two Irishmen, long enemies, met one day, and one of them said: “What’s the sinse of two intilligent min goin’ along, year after year, like a couple of wild cats spittin’ at each other? Here we live in the same tiniment, and ’tis a burnin’ shame that we do be actin’ like a couple of boobies. Come along wid yer and shake hands, and we’ll make up and be friends.” Which they did, and then they went to an adjacent saloon to cement the friendship with a glass of grog. Both stood at the bar in silence. One looked at the other and said: “What are you thinkin’ about?” “O’m thinkin’ the same thing that you are.” “Oh, so ye’re startin’ again, are you?”
“Mr. Mulligan,” said Dennis, “you must have binifitted by the death of your mother-in-law, for whom you had shmall affection while she lived.”
“I did.”
“What did she leave you?”
“She left me alone—isn’t that enough?”
“But I understand you’ve been spinding a hundred dollars, if you’ve spint a cent, to get her out of purgatory.”
“Whisht now, and isn’t it worth it to get her out before I get in.”
“Shure,” said Clancy, as he peeled the paper off a tomato can and threw it to the goat; “an’ it’s a quare langwidge thot we Amer’kans hov. Oi wint out to this Fort Hamilton th’ other day wid Biddy boi me soide, for Oi got to thinkin’ thot it wur th’ dooty av ivry citizen to make himself acquainted wid all thot phwich makes his counthry great. An’ it’s barely in the grounds we are befoor wan av thim sentries sez, sez he, ‘Who goes there?’”
“‘Phwere?’ I asks, turnin’ round.
“Who goes there!” he yells wance agin wid a thrifle higher infliction.
“‘Oi asked yez phwere?’ sez Oi wid some slight asper-ritty in me tones.
“Now phwin he yells ‘Who goes there?’ agin it’s mad Oi got. Oi tould him thot Oi wuz willin’ loike a gintlemon to hilp him wid his quistion, but thot Oi didn’t see anybody goin’ there or annyphwere, an’ thot Oi thought Oi wuz bein’ guyed, an’ afther callin’ him a sassenach Oi threatened to divist his donkey hid av it’s ears, phwich th’ same led to a foight, an’ the foight led me to th’ guard-house. How th’ divil wur Oi to know thot ‘Who goes there?’ means ‘Who are yez?’
“Shure an’ it’s a quare langwidge thot we Amer’kans hov.”
Mike and Murphy had hired a boat for the day. All went well till the afternoon, when, unfortunately, the boat sprang a leak and water rushed in at a terrible rate. Murphy began bailing as hard as he could; but looking up a moment or so later, he saw Mike apparently busy over something else at the other end of the boat.
“Hi, man,” he cried angrily, “what are ye doing?”
“Shure,” said Mike, “I’m boring another hole, bedad, to let the water out!”
TOO PREVIOUS.
A servant went to consult a fortune-teller, and she returned wailing dismally.
“Did she predict some great trouble?” her mistress asked, sympathetically.
“Och! mum, sich terrible news,” moaned Norah, rocking backward and forward, wringing her hands. “She tould me that my father wurks hard for a living shoveling coals and tending foires.”
“But that’s no disgrace or sorrow,” said her mistress, a trifle vexed.
“Och! mum, my poor father,” sobbed Norah, “he’s bin dead these noine years!”
An amusing story of amateur sport comes from Rockville, Maryland, where each year there is held a series of races “for all comers.”
The sun was blazing on a field of hot, excited horses and men, all waiting for a tall raw-boned beast to yield to the importunities of the starter and get into line.
The patience of the starter was nearly exhausted. “Bring up that horse!” he shouted. “Bring him up! You’ll get into trouble pretty soon if you don’t!”
The rider of the refractory beast, a youthful Irishman, yelled back: “I can’t help it. This here’s been a cab horse, and he won’t start till the door shuts, an’ I ain’t got no door!”
GENUINE IRISH RETORT.
At the Criminal Court, a few days since, a learned gentleman, dissatisfied at his success with an Irish witness, complained to the court. Paddy exclaimed, “I’m no lawyer, yer honor, and he wants to puzzle me.”
Counsel—“Come, now, do you swear you are no lawyer?”
Witness—“Faith, an’ I do; and you may swear the same thing about yourself, without fear of being liable for perjury.”
A gentleman visited the house of a friend. The butler, an Irishman, acted very kindly toward him. He waited upon him at dinner, brushed his clothes, and saw him into his carriage. The gentleman, who was very miserly, never offered a tip, so, as a little reminder, Pat said to him: “Faith, sor, if you lose your purse on the way, remember you didn’t pull it out hereabouts.”
JUST THAT QUICK?
Casey reached heaven in good time.
“Hello, St. Peter,” said he, “’tis a foine job you have.”
“Right, Casey. ’Tis a great place here. We count a million years as a minute and a million dollars as a cent.”
“Is that so,” said Casey, wonderingly. “Well, it’s money I need. Well you lend me a cent, St. Peter?”
“Sure,” replied St. Peter. “In a minute.”
Pat, who had lost his way in the mazes of a large exposition, finally went up to one of the guards and said:
“Will yez tell me the way to the goin’ out intrance?”
MAYBE SO.
In an Irish court-house an old man was called into the witness box, and being confused and somewhat near-sighted he went up the stairs that led to the bench instead of those that led to the box. The Judge good-humoredly said:
“Is it a Judge you want to be, my good man?”
“Ah, sure, yer worship,” was the reply. “I’m an old man now, and mebbe it’s all I’m fit for.”
Not long since Norah was about to industriously swing the broom around the parlor furniture, when she was summoned by her mistress.
“Before you sweep the parlor, Norah,” said the mistress as the servant girl entered the room, “I want to give you some advice about your broom.”
“Yes, mum,” was the wondering rejoinder of Norah; “phat’s the matter wid the broom?”
“Begorra, Moike, we can’t go down thot road.”
“An’ whoy not, Pat?”
“Sure, me bye, it says ‘For Pedestrians Only,’ an’ we both be Oirishmen.”
McGinty was walking along Broadway when it began to rain. In front he thought he saw his friend Dugan, with an umbrella.
He slapped him on the back and said, jokingly: “Halloa! Give me that umbrella!”
When the man turned and McGinty saw his face he realized that he was an utter stranger. Naturally, he was embarrassed. But the other man appeared even more surprised, and immediately handed over the umbrella.
“I beg your pardon,” he apologized. “I didn’t know it belonged to you.”
Cassidy, a green brakeman on the Colorado Mudline was making his first trip to Ute Pass. They were going up a very steep grade, and with unusual difficulty the engineer succeeded in reaching the top. At the Cascade station, looking out of his cab, the engineer saw the new brakeman and said with a sigh of relief:
“I tell you what, my lad, we had a job to get up there, didn’t we?”
“Shure and we did,” said Cassidy, “and if I hadn’t put on the brakes, we’d have slipped back.”
EITHER OR AYTHER.
Two Irishmen, Pat and Mike, stood looking at bricklayers who were working on a building that was being erected, when the following conversation was overheard:
Mike—“Pat, kin yez tell me what kapes them bricks together?”
Pat—“Sure, Mike; it’s the mortar.”
Mike—“Not by a dom sight; that keeps them apart.”
“The noight was that dark, Moike,” said Pat, while relating a past experience; “that no matther how far oi looked oi couldn’t see a step ahead of me.”
An Irishman came home from work one day and said to his wife: “Mary, we had an awful accident on the job to-day!”
“Was annyone hurt?” she asked.
“Well,” he said, “there was twenty-one Eyetalians and one Irishman killed!”
“Well,” said she, “isn’t it too bad about the poor fellow!”
The train had stopped, and the fat old Irish woman put her head out of the window and inquired of a young railway porter what it was stopping for.
The young man was inclined to be facetious.
“Engine out late last night, ma’am,” he remarked, with a smile, “so she’s got a thirst on her this morning; they’re giving ’er a drop o’ water.”
“And are ye shure it’s water?” queried the dame.
“If you’ll wait a minute I’ll inquire whether they’re givin’ ’er port wine,” he grinned.
“Shure, and never mind, young man, don’t be troublin’ yoursilf,” came the answer. “I thought, perhaps, by the way we’ve been gitting along, it was sloe gin!”
O’Donohue:—Oi got the crate of chickens you was sendin’ me allright, but next time Oi wist ye’d fasten them up, more securely. Comin’ from the station the damn things get out. Oi spent hours scouring the neighborhood and thin only found tin of them.
McGinty:—S-s-sh! Oi only sent six.
BREAKING THE NEWS.
Pat had been delegated by his fellow employees to tell Mrs. Casey the news of her husband’s accidental death. On the way to the Casey home, Pat pondered on how to break the news to the widow. Finally he hit on what seemed to him a most humane way of preparing Mrs. Casey for the sad news.
Knowing the violent hatred which Mrs. Casey as well as all loyal Irishmen have for the A. P. A., he said on greeting the woman:
“Ah, Mrs. Casey, it is bad news I have to bring you. Your husband, Mike, has turned an A. P. A.”
“Mike turned A. P. A.! The scoundrel, I hope he is dead.”
“He is,” answered Pat.
THEIR USE.
“What good are the figures set down in these railway time-tables?” asked the sarcastic and angry would-be passenger.
“Why,” explained the genial Irish station-master, “if it weren’t for them figures we’d have no way of findin’ out how late the trains are.”
Tom Callahan got a job on the section working for a railroad. The superintendent told him to go along the line looking for washouts.
“And don’t be as long-winded in your next reports as you have been in the past,” said the superintendent; “just report the condition of the roadbed as you find it, and don’t use a lot of needless words that are not to the point. Write like a business letter, not like a love-letter.”
Tom proceeded on his tour of inspection and when he reached the river, he wrote his report to the superintendent:
“Sir: Where the railroad was, the river is.”
An unfaithful steward had embezzled a large sum of money, and his employer asked advice from friends as to how he should be dealt with.
“Get rid of him at once,” advised an Englishman. “Keep him on and deduct the sum from his wages,” said a Scotchman.
“But,” said the landlord, “the sum he has embezzled is far bigger than his wages.”
“Then raise his wages,” suggested an Irishman.
A Galway man named Pat Carr was met one day by an English tourist, who said to him:
“What’s your name?”
“Carr,” said Pat.
“Well, well,” said the Englishman, “you’re the first car I ever saw going without an ass, so you’re a great curiosity to me.”
“Well,” said Pat, “you’re not the first ass I saw going without a car, so you’re no curiosity to me.”
During some building operations it was necessary for the workmen to walk across a single plank some distance from the ground. Whenever it came to Pat’s turn, the foreman noticed that he walked across on all fours. So he went up to Pat and asked contemptuously:
“What’s the trouble, man? Are you afraid of walking on the plank?”
“No, begorra,” said Pat, “but I’m afraid of walking off it.”
“What do we need for dinner, Bridget?” asked the lady of the house.
“Shure, mum, Oi tripped over th’ cat an’ we nade a complete new set av dishes.”
A GET-RICH-QUICK SCHEME.
Two young Irishmen in a Canadian regiment were going into the trenches for the first time, and their captain promised them five shillings each for every German they killed.
Pat lay down to rest, while Mick performed the duty of watching. Pat had not lain long when he was awakened by Mick shouting:
“They’re comin’! They’re comin’!”
“Who’s comin’?” shouts Pat.
“The Germans,” replies Mick.
“How many are there?”
“About fifty thousand.”
“Begorra,” shouts Pat, jumping up and grabbing his rifle, “our fortune’s made!”
Patrick had called on his Betsy and she gave him a handsome helping of her special make of apple pie. Patrick was loud in its praise.
“I tried a new way,” said Betsy, beaming. “I put a few gooseberries in to flavor it.”
“Begorra!” cried Patrick. “If a few gooseberries give so good a flavor to an apple pie, what a darlint of an apple pie it would be made o’ gooseberries entoirely!”
PROVED BY EXPERIMENT.
Mouldy Mike—These ’ere newspapers is just a pack o’ lies, that’s wot they are.
Ragged Robert—Wot yeh been readin’.
“I read an account of a feller from New York wot went inter a big hotel in a small town, an’ said he wanted to buy the hotel, an’ made ’em an offer, an’ give ’em a check wot wasn’t no good, an’ lived there a week on the fat o’ the land ’fore he had to light out w’en the check came back, an’ it never cost him a cent—that’s wot the paper said.”
“Mebby that’s true.”
“No, it ain’t.”
“How do yer know?”
“How do I know? Why, quick as I read it I tried it meself—an’ they kicked me out.”
Pat, with a little bit of drink in him, was standing on the sidewalk sneering at a Jewish peddler. The peddler stood the jeers for some time, but Pat became too personal.
“Don’t you know,” said the Hebrew, “that the country is financed by the Jews?”
“Maybe they does,” retorted Pat, “but bejabbers the Irish runs it.”
A sewerman returned home one distressingly hot day thoroughly exhausted, to find his better-half also tired out after spending the greater part of the day at the washtub. At the time he entered, however, she was seated, fanning herself vigorously. “Ain’t ye got no supper?” he asked somewhat angrily. “Supper, is it?” she asked. “Go on wid you! Me all tired out from a hard day’s wurruk in the hate, an’ you come home an’ ask for yer supper! Aisy indade for you all day down in a nice cool sewer!”
“Which would yez rather be in, Casey, an explosion or a collision?” asked his friend McCarthy.
“In a collision,” replied Casey.
“Why?”
“Because in a collision, there yez are; but in an explosion, where are yez?”
“What’s your name prisoner?”
“Casey, yer honor.”
“Your full name.”
“Casey, sorr, full or sober!”
“Arrah, me darlint,” cried Jamie O’Flanigan to his loquacious sweetheart, who had given him no opportunity of even answering her remarks during a two hours ride behind his little bay nags in his oyster wagon—“are yes afther knowing why yer cheeks are like my ponies there?”
“Shure, and it’s because they’re red, is it?” quoth the blushing Bridget.
“Faith and a better reason than that, mavourneen. Because there is one of them each side of a waggin’ tongue!”
Pat and Mike were passing the butcher’s stall, where there was a pair of chickens for sale.
“We’ll buy them,” said Mike, “and who ever has the best dream to-night can cook them for himself to-morrow.”
When they awoke that morning Pat related his dream.
“I dreamt that angels carried me up to heaven.”
“You’re right,” chimed Mike. “I saw you going up and thought you would never come back, so I got up, cooked the fowls and ate them.”
IN IRELAND.
“We never needed any of them new-fangled scales in Ireland,” said O’Hara. “There’s an aisy way to weigh a pig without scales. You get a plank and put it across a stool. Then you get a big stone. Put the pig on one end of the plank and the stone on the other end, and shift the plank until they balance. Then you guess the weight of the stone and you have the weight of the pig.”
The Irishman announced that he was about to be married.
“Married!” exclaimed his friend. “An old man like you?”
“Well, you see,” the old man explained, “it’s just because I’m getting an ould bhoy now. ’Tis a foine thing, Pat, to have a wife near ye to close the eyes of ye when ye come to the end.”
“Arrah, now, ye old fule!” exclaimed Pat. “Don’t be so foolish. What do ye know about it? Close yer eyes, indade! I’ve had a couple of thim, an’, faith, they both of thim opened mine!”
The Irishman was walking along the bank of the river. He was fuming with rage, for that day he had a dispute with a neighbor over the ownership of a pig. Suddenly a cry for help rent the air and, turning round, he saw a man struggling in the water.
Seeing Mike on the bank, the man in the water waved his hand and shouted:
“Hey, mate, drope me a line!”
In a flash the man on the bank recognized his adversary in the pig dispute. Thrusting his hands in his pockets he made to resume his walk, remarking over his shoulder:
“Shure, but there ain’t no post offices where ye’re goin’ to!”
A ganger on one of our large lines of railways had a keen Irish wit. One warm afternoon, while walking along the line, he found one of his men placidly sleeping on the embankment. The “boss” looked disgustedly at the delinquent for a full minute, and then remarked:
“Slape on, ye lazy spalpeen, slape on, fur as long as you slape you’ve got a job, but when you wake up you ain’t got none.”
WOULDN’T NEED TO.
Pat walked into the Post Office. After getting into the telephone box he called a wrong number. As there was no such number the switch attendant did not answer him. Pat shouted again, but received no answer.
The lady of the Post Office opened the door and told him to shout a little louder, which he did, but still no answer.
Again she said he would require to speak louder.
Pat got angry at this, and, turning to the lady, said:
“Begorra, if I could shout any louder I wouldn’t use your bloomin’ ould telephone at all!”
Pat had just arrived from Ireland when Mike, who had been in America for some years, spied him.
“Faith, Pat!” exclaimed Mike, “what are you doing over here?”
“I’ve come over,” answered Pat, “to try if I can make an honest living.”
“Begorra, Mike, me boy, that’s dead aisy over here, for it’s dommed little competition you’ll have in this country.”
In the court-house an Irishman stood charged with stealing a watch from a fellow citizen. He stoutly denied the impeachment, and brought a counter-accusation against his accuser for assault and battery committed with a frying-pan. The judge was inclined to take a common sense view of the case, and regarding the prisoner, said, “Why did you allow the prosecutor, who is a smaller man than yourself, to assault you, without resistance? Had you nothing in your hand to defend yourself with?” “Bedad, your honor,” answered Pat, “I had his watch, but what was that against a frying-pan?”
Pat (reading notice on bank door)—“This bank will reopen after the meeting of the assignees.” “Begob, it will be a long time before their assandknees meet.”
Clancy:—Dugan ate something that poisoned him.
Dick:—Croquette?
Clancy:—Not yit begorra, but he’s very sick.
For three solid hours the captain had been lecturing his men on “the duties of a soldier,” and he thought it was time to see how much they had understood of his discourse.
Casting his eyes round the room, he fixed on Private Murphy as his first victim.
“Private Murphy,” he asked, “why should a soldier be ready to die for his country?”
Private Murphy scratched his head for a moment and then a smile of enlightenment crossed his face.
“Sure, Captain,” he said, pleasantly, “you’re quite right. Why should he?”
Maggie: “What’s wrong with the car? It squeaks dreadfully.”
Patty: “Shure and it can’t be helped; there’s pig-iron in the axles.”
Mistress: “Mary, were you entertaining a man in the kitchen last night?”
Mary: “That’s for him to say, mum. I was doin’ the best I could with the materials I could find.”
Pat Rooney was a new arrival on the job. Having gone to the top of the building and failed to return, the foreman shouted up:
“Come on, Pat, what’s keeping ye?”
“Sure,” said Pat, “I can’t find my way down.”
“Well, come down the way ye went up,” shouted the foreman.
“Faith, an’ I won’t,” says Pat, “for I came up head first.”
It was during the dry spell a few months ago, and a shower having come up, Dr. Blank remarked to his gardener, “This rain will do a lot of good, Patrick.”
“Ye may well say that, sorr,” returned Pat. “Shure an hour of it now will do more good in five minutes than a month of it would do in a week at any other time.”
REVERSED.
Mike—“What makes you order ice cream for the first course and soup for the last?”
Pat—“Well, my stomach is upset, so I eat the meal backwards.”
NONE OF HIS BUSINESS.
Pat (shyly)—I want to see some weddin’ rings.
Jeweler—Eighteen karats?
Pat (loudly)—No, I’ve been atin’ onions and I don’t know that it is any of your business what I’ve been atin’.
Pat: “Phwat was the last card Oi dealt ye, Mike?”
Mike: “A spade.”
Pat: “Oi knew it was, Oi saw ye spit on yer hand before ye picked it up.”
“If everyone in the world was as dishonest as you are,” remarked an Irish judge, as he addressed a swindler before him; “I don’t know what would become of the rest of us.”
“It’s thrue,” said Paddy to Dennis one day, “it wor a grand soight. But whoile ye’re standin’ sit down, an’ Oi’ll tell ye all about it.”
MIKE’S PRECAUTION.
Mike—“Begorra, an’ I had to go thru the woods the other night where Casey was murdered last year an’ that they say is haunted, an’, bedad, I walked backward the whole way.”
Pat—“An’ what for wuz we after doin’ that?”
Mike—“Faith, man, so that I could see if anything wuz comin’ up behind me.”
Mrs. Murphy: “I want to see some mirrors.”
Shopwalker: “Hand mirrors, Madam?”
Mrs. Murphy: “No. Some that you can see your face in.”
Patrick—“Will you marry me?”
Intended:—“Yes, darlin’.”
“Darlin’, why don’t you say something.”
Patrick:—“Oi’ve said too much already.”
Mike—Yus, poor Sullivan is dead. He hadn’t got an enemy in the world.
Pat—What did he die of?
Mike—Oh; he wur killed in a foight.
ASPIRATION.
An Irish mother who had occasion to reprove her eldest son exclaimed, “I just wish that your father was at home some evening to see how you behave yourself when he is out!”
“Good mornin’ to ye, Mrs. Cassidy. An’ is the likely lookin’ young feller in yer third floor front a mimber of the church?”
“Naw, Mrs. Haggerty, I’m sorry to say he ain’t. He’s just an unconfirmed roomer.”
Pat—“An’ what did your ould woman say whin ye come in at three o’clock this mornin’?”
Mike—“Sure, the darlin’ soul never said a worrud. An I was goin’ to have thim two front teeth pulled out anyway.”
Pat (going to battle): Why are you carrying that comb?
Mike: Sur’in fate, ’tis the easiest one to part with.
Mrs. Murphy:—“Did yez hear of the awful fright Harry got on his weddin’ day?”
Her Husband:—“Shure, and don’t Oi know it, wasn’t Oi there—and didn’t Oi see her.”
“This is the fourth morning you’ve been late, Bridget,” said the mistress to her maid.
“Shure, Ma’am,” replied Bridget, “I over-slept meself.”
“Where is the clock I gave you?”
“In my room ma’am.”
“And do you set the alarm?”
“Every night.”
“But don’t you hear the alarm in the morning, Bridget?”
“No ma’am, thot’s the trouble you see the thing goes off while I’m asleep.”
Terence:—I see where Mike has married the widow, Elizabeth.
Foley:—Shure, an’ she has two children, already.
Maggie:—The lucky divil is what I say.
Terence:—How so? Lucky is it?
Maggie:—Shure, an’ by marryin’ her he has a second-hand Lizzie and two runabouts.
Mrs. Muldoon—“Do your dauter, Mary Ann, take music lessons?”
Mrs. Mulcahy—“Yis; she took lessons on a phonygraph and she broke the record.”
TOO MUCH WORK.
Pat had seen nearly every clock in the place, but had discarded all of them as not being good enough for his purpose. The weary shopman had exhausted his whole stock, except a few cuckoo clocks, so he brought these forward as a last resource, and vowed he would do his best to sell one or know the reason why.
“Do the clocks strike the hour?” asked Pat, noticing their curious shape, and half doubting their capacity to do anything.
“I’ll show you what they do,” said the salesman; and he set the hands of one to a few minutes to twelve. When the little door flew open and the cuckoo thrust his head out, cuckooing away for dear life, Pat was thunderstruck. But when the bird disappeared he looked glum, and pondered in gloomy thought for a moment.
“Well, how do you like that?” asked the salesman. “That’s a staggerer for you, isn’t it?”
“Faith and begorra, I should think it is,” declared Pat. “It’s trouble enough to remember to wind it, without having to think of feeding the bird.”
The chauffeur never spoke except when addressed, but his few utterances, given in a broad brogue, were full of wit.
One of the men in the party remarked: “You’re a bright sort of a fellow, and it’s easy to see that your people came from Ireland.”
“No, sor; ye are very badly mistaken,” replied Pat.
“What!” said the man. “Didn’t they come from Ireland?”
“No, sor,” answered Pat, “they’re there yet.”
Mrs. Murphy—No, yer Reverence, Pat can’t go on that scrub-cuttin’ job to-day—he’s in bed wid snake-bite.
Father O’Grady—Save his soul! An’ so he’s been bit, eh?
Mrs. Murphy—Not yet, Father; but he has drank a bottle of brandy ’n case he might be!
ON HER CALLING LIST.
Mrs. Flynn had just moved into the neighborhood, and an old friend dropped in for a visit. “And are yez on callin’ terms wid yer nixt door neighbor yet?”
“Indade Oi am,” answered the lady. “Oi called her a thafe, an’ she called me another!”
HEART OUT OF PLACE
An Irishman was telling of his war wound. He said: “An’ the bullet went in me chist here, and come out me back!”
“But,” said his friend, “it would have gone thru your heart and killed you.”
“Faith, an’ me heart was in me mouth at the time!”
INTERPRETING A DREAM
“Do ye belave in dhrames, Riley?”
“Oi do,” was Riley’s reply.
“Phwat’s it a sign of if a married man dhrames he’s a bachelor?”
“It’s a sign thot he’s going to meet wid a great disappointment when he wakes up.”
The foreman looked him up and down.
“Are you a mechanic?” he asked.
“No, sorr,” was the answer. “Oi’m a McCarthy.”
A PECULIAR POISON
Professor O’Flanigan held up a small phial, and the class was silent. “One drop of this liquid,” said he, impressively, “placed upon the tongue of a cat is sufficient to kill the strongest man!”
For months Pat, who lived in the oil country, had been drilling unsuccessfully in his back yard. One day his friends were astonished to see him rush from his door cheering loudly.
“What’s the idea, Pat?” he was asked.
“Haven’t ye heard the good news?”
“Good Lord! You haven’t struck oil at last, have you?”
“No, not yet. But didn’t ye notice how the price of it went up yesterday?”
Pat and Mike were engaged in a dispute in a cemetery one day. “Well,” said Pat, “I don’t like this cemetery at all, at all.”
“Well,” said Mike, “I think it is a fine cemetery.”
“No,” said Pat, “I don’t like it at all, at all, and I’ll never be buried in it as long as I live.”
“What an unreasonable ould fool ye are, to be sure,” said Mike, losing his temper. “Why man alive, it is a fine cemetery, and if my life is spared, sure I’ll be buried in it.”
An Irishman said that a friend of his had died suddenly. “Did he live high?” he was asked. “I can’t say as to that,” replied Mike “but he died high,—he was hung.”
Mrs. O’Regan—“Did yez ever hov yer palm read, Mrs. O’Reilly?”
Mrs. O’Reilly—“Phwat a question, Mrs. O’Regan! Haven’t I had ten children an’ had to spank all o’ thim?”
CELTIC SARCASM
The Mistress—“If the eggs are to be kept fresh, you must lay them in a cool place.”
The Cook—“Oi’ll mintion it to the hens at wanst.”
AN ILLOGICAL DEDUCTION
“Begorra,” said Patsy, “Oi couldn’t pay me five dollar foine, and Oi had to go to gaol for six days.”
“An’ how much did yez spend to get drunk?” asked Mike, rather sarcastically.
“Oh, ’bout five dollars.”
“Yez fool, if yez had not spent yez five dollars for drink, yez’d had five dollars to pay yer foine wid.”
IMPORTANT
Mrs. O’Toole—“Phwat dy yez think, Pat? Here’s a mon mintioned in the paper as afther shootin’ his wife and himself.”
Pat—“Shure, which did he kill fust?”
CORRECT TIME.
Pat—“An’ whoy do yez carry two watches?”
Mike—“Faith, Oi nade wan to see how shlow th’ other wan is.”
FOLLOWING ORDERS.
Doctor—“The room seems cold, Mrs. Hooligan. Have you kept the thermometer at seventy, as I told you?”
Mrs. Hooligan—“Shure, an’ Oi hov, dochtor. There’s th’ devillish thing in a toombler av warrum wather at this blissid minnut.”
Pat Dooley went round to the cabin of Mike Doolan to pass the time of day to him; but Mike was out. Mrs. Mike was in, boiling the praties and trying to nurse the child at the same time. Pat, being a polite boy, offered to dandle the baby while Mrs. Mike stirred the pot.
In came Mike. “Good morning to you, Pat.”
“The top of the morning to you, Mike, and how’s yourself?”
“It’s gay and grand I am, and how are you, Pat?”
“Just holding my own,” says Pat, tossing the child.
And when Pat woke up, he found that he had been in the hospital for a week.
Private Murphy—“Shure, wid all them women’s movements, I belave we’ll have women soldiers by and by.”
Private Flannigan—“Not a bit of it, shure, the arms that defied the counthry will always be clothed in trousers!”
Mike O’Mulligan (In hospital operating room, just recovering from effects of chloroform)—“Och, be the powers, where am I? Where is it I am, at all, at all?”
Surgeon Sawbones (with a wink to his assistant)—“In Heaven.”
Mulligan (looking around)—“Thin I’d like to know phwat the pair of yez is doin’ here?”
GOOD LOGIC
Pat—“I say, Mick, I’m very hard up. Can you lind me the loan of a dollar?”
Mick—“Begorro, Pat, to tell yer the thruth, I haven’t a dime on me. Every penny I get I give to my poor old mother.”
Pat—“Be jabbers, Mick, I’ve just been talking to yer mother, and she tells me ye never give her a cent.”
Mick—“Oh, well, Pat if I don’t give my poor old mother a cent, what sort of a chance have you got of getting any?”
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