afther awhile ye obsarve that whin ye start to tell how manny stitches it took an’ what ye see whin ye smelled th’ dizzy sponge, ye’er frinds begin to sprint away.  An’ ye go back reluctantly to wurruk.  Ye niver hear annywan say:  ’Hinnissy is great comp’ny whin he begins to talk about his sickness.’  I’ve seen men turn fr’m a poor, helpless, enthusyastic invalid to listen to a man talkin’ about th’ Nicaragoon canal.

“But with th’ great ‘tis far diff’rent.  I’ve often thanked th’ Lord that I didn’t continyoo in pollytics whin I was cap’n iv me precinct, f’r with th’ eyes iv all th’ wurruld focussed, as Hogan says, on me, I cud niver injye th’ pleasure iv a moment’s sickness without people in far-off Boolgahrya knowin’ whether me liver was on sthraight.  Sickness is wan iv th’ privileges iv th’ poor man that he shares with no wan.  Whin it comes kindly to him, th’ four walls iv his room closes in on him like a tent, folks goes by on th’ other side iv th’ sthreet, th’ rollin’ mill disappears, an’ with th’ mornin’ comes no honest day’s tile.  He lies there in blessid idleness an’ no matther what’s th’ matther with him, he don’t suffer half as much pain as he would in pursoot iv two dollars a day.  I knowed a man wanst who used to take his vacations that way.  Whin others wint off f’r to hunt what Hogan calls th’ finny monsthers iv th’ deep, he become seeryously ill an’ took to bed.  It made him very sthrong.

“But suppose I hadn’t resigned fr’m cap’n iv me precinct whin I was defeated.  If annything had happened to me, ye’d pick up th’ pa-apers an’ see:  ‘Seeryous news about th’ Cap’n iv th’ twinty-sicond precinct iv th’ sixth ward.  He has brain fever.  He has not.  He got in a fight with a Swede an’ had his ribs stove in.  He fell out iv th’ window iv a joolry store he was burglarizin’ an’ broke th’ left junction iv th’ sizjymoid cartilage.  Th’ throuble with th’ Cap’n is he dhrinks too much.  A man iv his age who has been a soak all his life always succumbs to anny throuble like hyperthroopily iv th’ cranium.  Docthor Muggers, dean iv th’ Post Gradyate Vethrinary school iv Osteopathy says he had a similar case las’ year in Mr. Hinnery Haitch Clohessy, wan iv th’ best known citizens iv this city.  Like th’ Cap, Mr. Clohessy was a high liver, a heavy dhrinker, a gambler an’ a flirt.  Th’ cases are almost identical.  Owin’ to th’ code iv pro-fissional eethics Dr. Muggers cud not tell th’ bereaved fam’ly what ailed Misther Clohessy, but it was undoubtedly his Past Life.’

“Thin come th’ doctors.  Not wan doctor, Hinnissy, to give ye a whiff out iv a towel an’ make ye sleep f’r an hour an’ wake up an’ say ‘I fooled ye.  Whin do ye begin?’ No, but all iv thim.  They escort th’ prisoner up th’ sthreet in a chariot, an’ th’ little newsboys runs alongside sellin’ exthry papers.  ’Our night edition will print th’ inside facts about Cap Dooley’s condition, an’ th’ Cap himsilf with a cinematograph iv th’ jolly