“I thought me frind Casey ‘d be taken up f’r histin’ a polisman f’r sure, though, to be fair with him, I niver knowed him to do but wan arnychist thing, and that was to make faces at Willum Joyce because he lived in a two-story an’ bay-window brick house.  Doolan said that was goin’ too far, because Willum Joyce usually had th’ price.  Wan day Casey disappeared, an’ I heerd he was married.  He niver showed up f’r a year; an’, whin he come in, I hardly knowed him.  His whiskers had been filed an’ his hair cut, an’ he was dhressed up to kill.  He wint into th’ back room, an’ Doolan was asleep there.  He woke him, an’ made a speech to him that was full iv slaughther and bloodshed.  Pretty soon in come a little woman, with a shawl over her head,—­a little German lady.  Says she, ‘Where’s me hoosband?’ in a German brogue ye cud cut with an ax.  ‘I don’t know ye’er husband, ma’am,’ says I.  ’What’s his name?’ She told me, an’ I seen she was Casey’s wife; ‘He’s in there,’ I says.  ‘In back,’ I says, ‘talking to Doolan, th’ prolotoorio.’  I wint back with her, an’ there was Casey whalin’ away.  ’Ar-re ye men or ar-re ye slaves?’ he says to Doolan.  ‘Julius,’ says his wife, ’vat ye doin’ there, ye blackgaard,’ she says.  ‘Comin’ ze, or be hivens I’ll break ye’er jaw,’ she says.  Well, sir, he turned white, an’ come over as meek as a lamb.  She grabbed him be th’ arm an’ led him off, an’ ‘twas th’ last I seen iv him.

“Afther a while Doolan woke up, an’ says he, ‘Where’s me frind?’ ‘Gone,’ says I.  ‘His wife came in, an’ hooked him off.’  ‘Well,’ says Doolan, ‘’tis on’y another victhry iv the rulin’ classes,’ he says.”

THE OPTIMIST.

“Aho,” said Mr. Dooley, drawing a long, deep breath.  “Ah-ho, glory be to th’ saints!”

He was sitting out in front of his liquor shop with Mr. McKenna, their chairs tilted against the door-posts.  If it had been hot elsewhere, what had it been in Archey Road?  The street-car horses reeled in the dust from the tracks.  The drivers, leaning over the dash-boards, flogged the brutes with the viciousness of weakness.  The piles of coke in the gas-house yards sent up waves of heat like smoke.  Even the little girls playing on the sidewalks were flaming pink in color.  But the night saw Archey Road out in all gayety, its flannel shirt open at the breast to the cooling blast and the cries of its children filling the air.  It also saw Mr. Dooley luxuriating like a polar bear, and bowing cordially to all who passed.

“Glory be to th’ saints,” he said, “but it’s been a thryin’ five days.  I’ve been mean enough to commit murdher without th’ strength even to kill a fly.  I expect to have a fight on me hands; f’r I’ve insulted half th’ road, an’ th’ on’y thing that saved me was that no wan was sthrong enough to come over th’ bar.  ’I cud lick ye f’r that, if it was not so hot,’ said Dorsey, whin I told him I’d change no bill f’r him.  ‘Ye cud not,’ says I, ’if ‘twas cooler,’ I says.  It’s cool enough f’r him now.  Look, Jawn dear, an’ see if there’s an ice-pick undher me chair.