“An’ there ye ar-re.  Two opinions.”

“I see on’y wan,” said Mr. Hennessy.  “What do ye raaly think?”

“I think,” said Mr. Dooley, “if people wanted to be divoorced I’d let thim, but I’d give th’ parents into th’ custody iv th’ childher.  They’d larn thim to behave.”

GLORY

“Hogan has been in here this afthernoon, an’ I’ve heerd more scandal talked thin I iver thought was in the wurrld.”

“Hogan had betther keep quiet,” said Mr. Hennessy.  “If he goes circulatin’ anny stories about me I’ll—­”

“Ye needn’t worry,” said Mr. Dooley.  “We didn’t condiscend to talk about annywan iv ye’er infeeryor station.  If ye want to be th’ subjick iv our scand’lous discoorse ye’d betther go out an’ make a repytation.  No, sir, our talk was entirely about th’ gr-reat an’ illusthrees an’ it ran all th’ way fr’m Julius Cayzar to Ulysses Grant.

“Dear, oh dear, but they were th’ bad lot.  Thank th’ Lord nobody knows about me.  Thank th’ Lord I had th’ good sinse to retire f’rm pollyticks whin me repytation had spread as far as Halsted Sthreet.  If I’d let it go a block farther I’d’ve been sorry f’r it th’ rest iv me life an’ some years afther me death.

“I wanted to be famous in thim days, whin I was young an’ foolish.  ’Twas th’ dhream iv me life to have people say as I wint by:  ’There goes Dooley, th’ gr-reatest statesman iv his age,’ an’ have thim name babies, sthreets, schools, canal boats, an’ five-cent seegars afther me, an’ whin I died to have it put in th’ books that ’at this critical peeryod in th’ history of America there was need iv a man who combined strenth iv charackter with love iv counthry.  Such a man was found in Martin Dooley, a prom’nent retail liquor dealer in Ar-rchey Road.’

“That’s what I wanted, an’ I’m glad I didn’t get me wish.  If I had, ’tis little attintion to me charackter that th’ books iv what Hogan calls bi-ography wud pay, but a good deal to me debts.  Though they mintioned th’ fact that I resked death f’r me adopted fatherland, they’d make th’ more intherestin’ story about th’ time I almost met it be fallin’ down stairs while runnin’ away fr’m a polisman.  F’r wan page they’d print about me love iv counthry, they’d print fifty about me love iv dhrink.

“Th’ things thim gr-reat men done wud give thim a place in Byrnes’s book.  If Julius Caysar was alive to-day he’d be doin’ a lockstep down in Joliet.  He was a corner loafer in his youth an’ a robber in his old age.  He busted into churches, fooled ar-round with other men’s wives, curled his hair with a poker an’ smelled iv perfumery like a Saturday night car.  An’ his wife was a suspicyous charackter an’ he turned her away.