“‘Tis pro-gress.  We live in a cinchry iv pro-gress an’ I thank th’ Lord I’ve seen most iv it.  Man an’ boy I’ve lived pretty near through this wondherful age.  If I was proud I cud say I seen more thin Julyus Caesar iver see or cared to.  An’ here I am, I’ll not say how old, still pushin’ th’ malt acrost th’ counther at me thirsty counthrymen.  All around me is th’ refinemints iv mechanical janius.  Instead iv broachin’ th’ beer kag with a club an’ dhrawin’ th’ beer through a fassit as me Puritan forefathers done, I have that wondher iv invintive science th’ beer pump.  I cheat mesilf with a cash raygisther.  I cut off th’ end iv me good cigar with an injanyous device an’ pull th’ cork out iv a bottle with a conthrivance that wud’ve made that frind that Hogan boasts about, that ol’ boy Archy Meeds, think they was witchcraft in th’ house.  Science has been a gr-reat blessin’ to me.  But amidst all these granjoors here am I th’ same ol’ antiquated combination iv bellows an’ pump I always was.  Not so good.  Time has worn me out.  Th’ years like little boys with jackknives has carved their names in me top.  Ivry day I have to write off something f’r deprecyation.  ’Tis about time f’r whoiver owns me to wurruk me off on a thrust.  Mechanical science has done ivrything f’r me but help me.  I suppose I ought to feel supeeryor to me father.  He niver see a high buildin’ but he didn’t want to.  He cudden’t come here in five days but he was a wise man an’ if he cud’ve come in three he’d have stayed in th’ County Roscommon.

“Th’ pa-apers tells me that midical science has kept pace with th’ hop-skip-an’-a-jump iv mechanical inginooty.  Th’ doctors has found th’ mickrobe iv ivrything fr’m lumbago to love an’ fr’m jandice to jealousy, but if a brick bounces on me head I’m crated up th’ same as iv yore an’ put away.  Rockyfellar can make a pianny out iv a bar’l iv crude ile, but no wan has been able to make a blade iv hair grow on Rockyfellar.  They was a doctor over in France that discovered a kind iv a thing that if ’twas pumped into ye wud make ye live till people got so tired iv seein’ ye around they cud scream.  He died th’ nex’ year iv premachure ol’ age.  They was another doctor cud insure whether th’ flex’ wan wud be a boy or a girl.  All ye had to do was to decide wud it be Arthur or Ethel an’ lave him know.  He left a fam’ly iv unmarredgeable daughters.

“I sometimes wondher whether pro-gress is anny more thin a kind iv a shift.  It’s like a merry-go-round.  We get up on a speckled wooden horse an’ th’ mechanical pianny plays a chune an’ away we go, hollerin’.  We think we’re thravellin’ like th’ divvle but th’ man that doesn’t care about merry-go-rounds knows that we will come back where we were.  We get out dizzy an’ sick an’ lay on th’ grass an’ gasp:  ‘Where am I?  Is this th’ meelin-yum?’ An’ he says:  ’No, ‘tis Ar-rchey Road.’  Father Kelly says th’ Agyptians done things we cudden’t do an’ th’ Romans put up sky-scrapers an’ aven th’ Chinks had tillyphones an’ phony-grafts.