“An’ will we stay in?  Faith, I dinnaw.  We feel kindly to each other; but it looks to me like, th’ first up in th’ mornin’, th’ first away with th’ valu’bles.”

“I’ll niver come in,” protested Mr. Hennessy, stoutly.

“No more ye will, ye rebelyous omadhon,” said Mr. Dooley.  “An’ ’twas thinkin’ iv you an’ th’ likes iv you an’ Schwartzmeister an’ th’ likes iv him that med me wondher.  If th’ ’liance got into a war with Garmany, an’ some wan was to start a rough-an’-tumble in Ireland about iliction time, I wondher wud th’ cimint hold!”

HANGING ALDERMEN.

Chicago is always on the point of hanging some one and quartering him and boiling him in hot pitch, and assuring him that he has lost the respect of all honorable men.  Rumors of a characteristic agitation had come faintly up Archey Road, and Mr. Hennessy had heard of it.

“I hear they’re goin’ to hang th’ aldhermen,” he said.  “If they thry it on Willum J. O’Brien, they’d betther bombard him first.  I’d hate to be th’ man that ’d be called to roll with him to his doom.  He cud lick th’ whole Civic Featheration.”

“I believe ye,” said Mr. Dooley.  “He’s a powerful man.  But I hear there is, as ye say, what th’ pa-apers ’d call a movement on fut f’r to dec’rate Chris’mas threes with aldhermen, an’ ’tis wan that ought to be encouraged.  Nawthin’ cud be happyer, as Hogan says, thin th’ thought iv cillybratin’ th’ season be sthringin’ up some iv th’ fathers iv th’ city where th’ childher cud see thim.  But I’m afraid, Hinnissy, that you an’ me won’t see it.  ‘Twill all be over soon, an’ Willum J. O’Brien ’ll go by with his head just as near his shoulders as iver.  ’Tis har-rd to hang an aldherman, annyhow.  Ye’d have to suspind most iv thim be th’ waist.

“Man an’ boy, I’ve been in this town forty year an’ more; an’ divvle th’ aldherman have I see hanged yet, though I’ve sthrained th’ eyes out iv me head watchin’ f’r wan iv thim to be histed anny pleasant mornin’.  They’ve been goin’ to hang thim wan week an’ presintin’ thim with a dimon’ star th’ next iver since th’ year iv th’ big wind, an’ there’s jus’ as manny iv thim an’ jus’ as big robbers as iver there was.

“An’ why shud they hang thim, Hinnissy?  Why shud they?  I’m an honest man mesilf, as men go.  Ye might have ye’er watch, if ye had wan, on that bar f’r a year, an’ I’d niver touch it.  It wudden’t be worth me while.  I’m an honest man.  I pay me taxes, whin Tim Ryan isn’t assessor with Grogan’s boy on th’ books.  I do me jooty; an’ I believe in th’ polis foorce, though not in polismen.  That’s diff’rent.  But honest as I am, between you an’ me, if I was an aldherman, I wudden’t say, be hivins, I think I’d stand firm; but—­well, if some wan come to me an’ said, ‘Dooley, here’s fifty thousan’ dollars f’r ye’er vote to betray th’ sacred inthrests iv Chicago,’ I’d go to Father Kelly an’ ask th’ prayers iv th’ congregation.